


The Golden Rule

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Angels, Angst, Chaptered, Death, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Guardian Angels, Homophobic Language, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kim Mingyu only starts believing in angels when he meets Jeon Wonwoo. The latter has a habit of keeping his heart on too loose of a leash. The former is self-critical and tends to get himself stuck in the way of death quite often. Rightfully so, they are a match made in Heaven. Literally.





	1. Manage me, I'm a mess.

There isn't a reason as to why he’s biked all the way up to the top of the hill, to the peak of an unnamed mountain, to where the silent and unsuspecting place he grew up is nestled within the valley below. Mingyu _wants_ to believe there isn’t a reason, but there is. He’s never been that great at acknowledging his problems.

  
Air sucks a vortex around his person as he lets his bike rest against a rusty guardrail. The noise it makes, the metal-on-metal, disturbs the sounds of the mountain mist and various birds amongst the trees. From up here, he can see his house. He can’t, really, but thinking he can calms him. Come to think of it, he does feel exceptionally calm. It’s in his nature, but right now and just minutes prior, he had been feeling anything _but_ natural. He pulls his phone from his pocket; the time reads 16:32. He hadn’t realized it had gotten so late on the bike ride up. His parents might be cooking the evening meal right now, and they were also secure in his statement upon leaving, that he was only going out to help a friend study for an hour or two.

  
Mingyu couldn’t remember the last time he had talked to anyone else outside his family. Telling that lie had made his stomach churn. Surely, they’d realize he was being transparent. Surely, his own mother and father could see how disgustingly _false_ he was being.

  
But they had kissed him on each cheek, as they were so used to doing, before patting him on the back and letting him go. He tried to clear his mind of that thought. He had scrubbed away at his cheeks with the sleeves of his sweatshirt as soon as he closed the door behind him.

  
Taking a deep breath, he swings his legs over the guardrail, careful not to rip his pants on the gnarled edges. When they found him, he wanted his mother to have pride in her darling son, taking special note not to ruin the clothes she had so graciously provided him. _Hah._ He was being bitter. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t his fault either, Mingyu thought, because it honestly wasn’t. Learning about the brain in biology class during school had given him enough of an answer. Some people were wired differently than others, and he just so happened to be one of the ones worse off. He’d tried so hard to feel happy. Some days were better than others; the ones when the sun rose and the birds chirped and there was hot food in the kitchen...those were nothing special. It was the days when he was alone that were best. The ones where he could ponder in solitude, whether it be in his room with the door shut or on his favorite park bench with a good book.

  
_“What do you want to be when you graduate?”_

  
_“Where are you going to university?”_

  
_“When are you going to find yourself a nice girl to settle down with?”_

  
His parents meant no harm. Mingyu felt bad for blaming them, because they were just that: parents. They’d ask all the usual questions that were probably outlined in some book titled “How to Raise a Compliant Child 101” and he simply couldn’t give straight answers. He’d spent the past however many years dodging them like bullets.

  
_“I’m still deciding.”_

  
_“I’m looking for somewhere close, definitely.”_

  
_“When the time is right. Right now, I’m just not interested.”_

  
For some strange reason, he touches his face and his cheeks are damp. Mingyu wants to think the tears are from the harsh wind from being so high in altitude, but the sad reality was that his thoughts were messing with him. The little voice in his head that so often kept him sane had now deserted him. He was completely alone here. In one part of him, he rejoiced, whooping and hollering inside the confines of his own self. In another part, he was screaming, banging on the walls to get someone’s attention. Mingyu shushed that part. He told it to go away, and it did, if only a little.

  
17:03. His parents could be distraught by now. They could be overboiling the water on the stove, or leaving the food unattended. Neither of them would think to come up here. They wouldn’t dare venture out past the street where their house was resting amidst twenty-some others that looked almost identical to it. The neighbors would not care. No one, obviously, would even bat an eye.

  
Before he had left, Mingyu had made sure to clean his room. There was no dust present, and all his picture frames and bookshelves were pristine, organized in the way he liked them. Not that it really mattered. He was self-conscious of the way his things were kept, and if his parents were to search through everything, he wanted them to be proud of how clean he was. The bed had been made, the pillows fluffed, and his note—concealed in a blue envelope addressed to ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’—resting atop his desk in plain view.

  
Meticulously, overweening, he had planned this down to the second. To the centimeter. To every fine detail and nook and cranny and niche. All of life leads to the moment you take your last breath, thought Mingyu, staring down into the ravine below. As cliche as it was, he wanted to make his last breath perfect and orderly.

  
It was all because of school. Funny, the one thing he did as a routine, as if being stuck in a rut was the best thing, it had turned on him and created some monster that even he was not familiar with. At school, if you had no friends, you were odd. Mingyu was odd. But he liked being alone, and he didn’t bother to introduce himself to anyone because it didn’t seem important. Being in his last year of high school meant that his grades should be getting the bulk of his attention. It had gone on for years, though, the oddness. Since he first started school, he didn’t play with the others but opted instead to sit in various recluse places, coloring at first, then reading books, then scrolling around on his phone, up until now, where all he did during lunch breaks was stare absentmindedly out the window.

  
All he knew was odd. And it wasn’t odd to him—it was all he was comfortable with.

  
High school students were like the packs of animals they do documentaries about on Animal Planet. Mingyu had made the connection shortly after this school year had started, when he’d overhear conversations about him—unwillingly, of course, but it drew him in—and how weird he was, how ‘that tall kid’ never talked to anyone except his teachers. And it was true. He wouldn’t deny it.

  
He didn’t deny it when they started calling him a queer, either.

  
Mingyu, being a docile person, wanted to go about his life peacefully. When something interrupted the peace, when earthquakes of insults shook him and daggers full of teenage poison got through his walls, he had nowhere to turn. The problem with his parents was that they were too set in seeing him as a normal boy his age should be: out having fun with friends, pulling mischief, kissing a different girl each week. It was normal. Painstakingly, horribly normal. And it wasn’t him.

  
Because maybe he was a queer. It wasn’t something he knew the definition of. But he did know that accidentally catching the eye of the star basketball player while everyone had been changing during gym class had been what had triggered it. So now, he was even more of an outcast. Normally, that label wouldn’t bother him, because it was true. People had left him alone, though. Not anymore. Apparently, once rumors flew like flocks of birds around a tiny school where everyone knew everyone, it was impossible to escape. It was impossible to admit their truth, even when someone shoved a box of condoms into his mailbox for his parents to find, the word ‘homo’ scratched with red pen all over the box’s surface. Mingyu remembered coming home from school to his parents crying in the living room, meeting his eyes with nothing but disappointment.

  
Is that what he was? No longer a son, no longer a human being, but a _disappointment?_

  
The box had been thrown away, and his parents didn’t bring it up at all after that day. Something, since then, had been off. Mingyu couldn’t decide on what it was, but he knew there was hostility shared across their dinner table. He felt it when they hugged him goodbye, how his own father began wrapping his arms not all the way around him, leaving space where his hands used to rub his back. Mingyu felt cast aside like the box that sat in the trash. The questions concerning when he was going to find a nice girl to date stopped coming, and he wished they hadn’t. He wished for things to be normal. He wished, most of all, that he had been born with the right path of wires in his brain instead of the rerouted ones that caused him to be such a fuck up.

  
But he had lived long enough as a fuck up, so he was used to it. Saddened by it, but adjusted.

  
His head bent forward, Mingyu stretched his neck to attempt to see the bottom of the pit he was faced with. The mist rises up from the ravine below; somewhere, his parents might be reading the note he left. Somewhere, his classmates might be telling jokes about him. Somewhere, Mingyu pushes himself to think it, he might have been happy. Somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn’t here. There really was nowhere else for him to be but here. There was, though, but Mingyu had not tapped into the rational section of his mind in a long, long time. Being rational was completely irrational. Being happy, though, that was a rational thing to want.

  
_Why don’t you just kill yourself, fucking queer?_

  
Mingyu doesn’t want to think about it as giving up. His stomach is oddly settled. His hands pat the wrinkles in his clothes as smooth as he can get them, and he looks down at his feet, placed precariously near the edge of the decline, making sure the laces of his dress shoes are tied. Double-knotted, as always. God forbid they come untied and fall off his feet. The wind is still for once, and his mouth moves to form words, but he quickly realizes nothing will come out but nervous vomit if he tries to open it to speak.

  
So, he takes a step. His legs have always been long, the factor of his unruly height, so it isn’t surprising that the step lands on solid air, hitting atmosphere for a millisecond before breaking through and dissolving. Mingyu wants to die with his eyes closed, so he shuts them, but it’s more out of force of the wind pushing him up than anything. It’s like gravity doesn’t want him to go, but it isn’t strong enough.

  
He doesn’t think about it. He thinks about the guitar that sits in the corner of his room, gathering cobwebs. He’d always wanted to learn to play it.

  
The ground hits him, or he hits it.

  
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

  
The dust settles. His mind is clear, but it hadn't been moments before. Was death supposed to feel this calm? Was he in heaven, or someplace else? There wasn't much time to think, because Mingyu realized that he felt no ache in his bones despite the impact of landing...of falling. He had just jumped. He had actually done it. Instead of feeling proud of himself, or relieved, all he felt was the sense that something was off. His lungs expanded with air and he exhaled. Opening his eyes, the brightness flooded his vision. The sky still looked the same. The clouds still floated past. There was still mist fogging up his peripherals. There was a tenseness in his muscles, but then again, when wasn’t there? He experienced no sign of pain or brokenness, and it was weird.

  
It was weird, very weird, but the weirdest thing of all was the boy standing over him.

  
Mingyu lay perfectly still, only moving to blink. The boy blinked back. Before he could utter a word, Mingyu realized he was smiling. Why was he smiling? His eyes were crinkled up in silent laughter, and he took a deep breath before finally introducing himself.

  
Except, he didn’t.

  
“Wow, some fall, huh?”

  
Mingyu sits bolt upright, an imaginary board pressing his back into a perfectly terrified posture. The boy—he’s still smiling like a devil, and Mingyu is extremely disconcerted—moves so that he can sit across from him, legs folding like he’s relaxed. They’re sitting on the moist ground in the middle of two mountains and he looks like he does this every weekend. Mingyu is feeling anything but friendly. The air between them seems to buzz with electricity as if lightning prepares to strike. He gulps.

  
Mingyu opts not to respond to the other’s comment. “Who are you?” he asks, feeling himself shaking. His voice, he hears vaguely, resembles gravel. It’s quiet and rocky from lack of use, and he clears his throat in response. He wrings his hands together, feeling the cold chill his knuckles hold. He’s always had a habit of cracking them, but he can’t bring himself to do it at the moment.

  
The other boy raises a slanted eyebrow. “I’m an angel,” he answers as if it’s the most matter-of-fact thing, and Mingyu almost feels a snarky remark rising up in his throat like bile. “Does that answer your question?”

  
“No,” Mingyu asserts, shaking his head. Angels did not exist, he thinks, staring into the eyes of this...this thing across from him. He looked human enough. His voice sounded normal, quite deep, but otherwise ordinary. Mingyu squinted, trying to discern some form of ethereal fairy dust floating about, some Godlike aura, but nothing came. He wasn’t staring at anything special. It was just a guy. A normal guy. This ‘normal guy’ was smiling like he knew the secrets Mingyu didn’t even know about himself. It was quite offsetting.

  
“What’s your name?” Mingyu asks instead, trying to reason it out of him.

  
The supposed ‘angel’ just laughs. “I can’t tell you.”

  
“Why not?”

  
The boy leans closer and Mingyu finds himself drawn in. There’s something strange about the way he’s being looked at, but he puts it off, blaming it on how frazzled his mind is after facing certain death just moments before. He has eyes like stone, warm underneath, maybe, but their sharpness shone through any sense of temperature. Mingyu isn’t sure if he’s intrigued or scared. Perhaps a little of both.

  
“If I told you,” hums the boy, “your ears would bleed. Your heart would stop. You’d choke on its weight and its beauty. So obviously, it’s against protocol to even utter the first syllable.”

  
“What...what the hell? What are you?”

  
The boy shrugs his narrow shoulders. “I told you. An angel. A divine being, a child of God. A thing of beauty, intelligence, and a bridge between your world and all the others. Can’t you tell?" He lifts a hand and caresses his own cheek sarcastically as if to admire himself in a nonexistent mirror. This whole circumstance has Mingyu questioning whether or not he should’ve jumped in the first place. Certainly, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be listening to some wack job claim he was God’s son, or whatever.

  
“A-angels,” Mingyu manages, his voice rising in pitch, “aren’t real. So you’re lying.”

  
The other boy, yet again, laughs, and Mingyu grows increasingly frustrated. Yes, he’s bewildered as all get out, but he must be dreaming. He’s moved past thinking he’s in heaven because his skin feels real and his breath is coming out in rapid bursts as if he’s just finished running a marathon. He’s not dead, by some miracle (or curse, he can’t really tell), so he’s either asleep or off his rocker.

  
“I am real,” the boy says, finally catching his breath. His eyes soften up. He seems to tilt his head in wonderment, the same gesture Mingyu upholds as he stares back. “Humans. You are all so naive. Believe me, Kim Mingyu, I am very real.”

  
“How do you know my name?” He doesn’t remember telling him. In fact, he’s certain he never did, because he was too preoccupied with the thought of death and how he still managed to fail at achieving something so simple. Mingyu watches some sort of humorous expression cross the boy’s face, leaving him with a knowing smirk and a slight crinkle in his nose. Mingyu curses himself for noticing so quickly.

  
“I know everything about you. From the moment you first took a breath in this world until the moment you take your last—which, by the way,” he interrupts his train of thought, gazing a little harsher at Mingyu, who suddenly feels the weight of guilt somewhere in his stomach, “will not be anytime soon, if I have anything to say about it.”

  
At this sentiment, he stands gracefully, extending an arm out to Mingyu. He hesitates before grabbing it, and he’s pulled up with ease.

  
“Wait,” Mingyu pauses to collect his thoughts. The other boy, who had taken a few steps in the other direction, looks over his shoulder. “So...that means you’re—”

  
“As cheesy as it is,” he interjects, flashing his teeth, “yes. I’m a guardian angel. Such a lame title, right? Why not something cooler? It’s so typical.”

  
Mingyu’s head is reeling. Typical. There was nothing typical about what he was hearing.

  
“Tell me,” the angel remarks, eyeing Mingyu suspiciously, “what were you doing up there?” He points to the sky, to the cliff where Mingyu had just willingly stepped off into nothingness. Oddly enough, Mingyu cannot formulate an answer, so he goes with the obvious.

  
“I jumped.”

  
“Uh-huh.” The angel ponders him. Mingyu doesn’t like this one bit. Who was this guy to bust into his life, well, the ending of his life, like he had? The whole ‘guardian angel’ gambit sunk in, and Mingyu thought about the fact that he couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. Then again, a fall from such a height would’ve certainly killed him on impact. What Mingyu had been hoping for hadn’t happened, and instead, it was as if he had just woken up on the floor of the ravine, uninjured, with some random boy peering down at him like a science project. Unless he was an excellent magician, the likelihood of this being some cruel joke were slim to none. Angels, Mingyu knew, were not real. But there was an angel standing right in front of him. Seeing was believing, but only because Mingyu couldn’t come up with any other theory as to how he hadn’t just killed himself. He decided in that instant to just go with it.

  
“Why did you jump, Mingyu?”

  
His voice is quiet; he’s just now realizing it, but it had only seemed loud and vibrant before when Mingyu had doubted his truthfulness. In a way, he seems to arch his shoulders inward, something Mingyu recognizes as a defense mechanism. He supposed angels could feel insecure, too. The words that slide from his mouth sound genuinely upset, which causes the pit of guilt already present in Mingyu’s stomach to grow in size and density. Once again, he fears that opening his mouth just invites him to throw up, but he swallows the feeling down.

  
“Life isn’t really...my thing. It’s not really working.”

  
“Well,” the angel mused, rubbing his temples, all whilst keeping eyes locked to Mingyu’s face. The intensity of his look almost burned, he thought. “I’m gonna make it work for you, okay? I’ll do whatever I have to.”

  
Mingyu finds himself nodding. After all, he was no angel. He didn’t know best. This guy, on the other hand, looked as though he knew exactly how to solve his problems. The only thing he had to overcome before getting to those problems was Mingyu himself. He was still wary of what stood in front of him.

  
“Prove it.”

  
“What?”

  
Mingyu repeats himself. “Prove to me you are what you say you are.”

  
The angel, now wiping the puzzled look from his face, does not laugh like Mingyu expects him to. Instead, he walks back up to him, a little too close for comfort, and stares straight into Mingyu’s eyes. Mingyu had been right: the angel’s eyes were warm underneath, upon closer inspection, but suddenly they started to change as if light were gradually being poured in, not unlike how the sun rises in the morning. Somewhere—Mingyu can’t tell if it’s close or not—the sound of singing drowns out every other noise, and he feels as if his feet are sinking...no, he’s floating. He can’t tell. All around him, he feels warmth like he’s never felt before; it’s like being set on fire without burning. The angel’s eyes have gone completely white, and Mingyu doesn’t want to stare but he cannot tear himself away. And then, as soon as it had started, it stops. Gasping for air, Mingyu stumbles back, and the angel remains calm, a completely unreadable expression on his face.

  
Mingyu rubs his eyes, and the angel shrugs his shoulders forward once more, assuming a position of uncertainty.

  
“Do you believe me now?” His voice is silk-like and soft, softer than Mingyu anticipates.

  
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.”

  
Not wanting to carry on the topic of angels and weird reality bending or whatever the heck he had just experienced, Mingyu reaches for his cell phone. Throughout all of this, he’s forgotten which pocket he put it in before jumping, and he grows frantic, patting down his coat, before recalling it was in his pants pocket. The weight makes itself known as soon as he thinks of it. The angel kicks at the dusty ground below his feet, and he paces around aimlessly as if unsure of what to say.

  
Unfortunately, when Mingyu pulls his phone out, he finds the screen shattered. The angel, biting his lip to hold back a smile, shakes his head, reaching for it. Mingyu lets him take it. He turns it over between precise fingers, swiping the screen, pressing buttons, before realizing it won’t work. “Sorry I couldn’t save the phone, too. You landed gently, but apparently not gently enough.”

  
Mingyu sighs. He figures he’ll replace it later.

  
“What do I call you? If you can't tell me your actual name, y’know.”

  
The angel lets his smile take over his face. Mingyu forces his eyes away, then back up. Holding the shattered phone in one hand, the angel looks at his reflection in the cracked screen, taking his other hand to run it through his hair.

  
“Let me think.” Mingyu watches as the other boy pulls a face that looks like he’s scanning a book, reading words that he can’t see. His eyes go back to pondering his reflection, and a sudden smile appears, marking some revelation that Mingyu supposes he’s about to elaborate on.  
“A few lives ago, I was...I was Jeon Wonwoo. This is him. Well, me now.”

  
“Jeon Wonwoo?” The name falls off of Mingyu’s tongue. It’s normal. Ordinary. Fitting, and maybe familiar, and he looks over the angel’s—Jeon Wonwoo’s—face, trying to decipher what he’s thinking. He says nothing, but Mingyu senses the name might take time to get used to.

  
“Jeon Wonwoo. A few hundred years ago, a thousand maybe, this is who he was.” The angel gestures to his body using both hands. Mingyu looks him up and down. He’s only a little bit shorter than him, which was expected (considering he was a freak in terms of height anyway). The clothes he wears are completely normal, albeit a tad bit baggy. Everything is so normal about him and Mingyu tries to stuff the juxtaposition of it all deep down in his brain. This was an angel, but he looked no different than a classmate. The youth still dripped off his features—his pointed nose, the curve of his jaw, and the bushiness of his eyebrows underneath the black fringe of hair. “When angels present themselves, they must inhabit some human body, and I guess this was one they had available.”

  
Mingyu snorted. “Is there, like, a body shop or like, a catalog, for you guys?”

  
Wonwoo—Mingyu makes a conscious effort to humanize him—just blinks. “Of course.”

  
“You’re serious? That’s—”

  
In a split second, the facade is gone and Wonwoo smiles again, letting him in on the joke. Mingyu has to admit it’s beautiful. Whether or not it’s because he’s an angel, he doesn't know, but whoever Jeon Wonwoo was must feel lucky now to know that his body was literally divine. The angel’s laughter is loud and it echoes around the steep walls of the ravine, and sometime soon after, Mingyu finds himself laughing as well. It’s hysterical. They both calm down when Wonwoo holds out a hand for Mingyu to shake. He takes it into his own, warm and firm and easy, and he doesn’t break the eye contact with the angel who still won’t wipe the smirk from his holy face.

  
“Let’s start over, okay? Nice to meet you,” he says, and Mingyu smiles, more relaxed than he had been for the past hour or so. “My name is Jeon Wonwoo. It isn’t really, but it’s all your human tongue can speak.”

  
“Kim Mingyu,” the other boy spits out. Wonwoo hasn’t let go of his hand, despite the handshake being long over and done with. For some reason, the pressure is welcome. “But I suppose you already know that.”

  
Wonwoo nods, dropping his grip. Mingyu draws his hand back, and since he feels so empty, he manages to hold his other hand in a feeble attempt to replace the angel’s.

  
“So, this is your job, then,” says Mingyu. Wonwoo cocks his head, looking around. “Well, you implied it’s always been your job. But why am I just now seeing you, if you’ve always been here?”

  
“I’ll explain,” Wonwoo says after a minute. He gestures for Mingyu to follow him, and he starts the trek out of the ravine. “But we’ve gotta get you home first. Let’s go.” Wonwoo doesn’t seem to be taking no for an answer, and Mingyu hasn’t thought about the itch in his brain that pushed him up here since Wonwoo first showed up, hovering over him. It’s a welcome distraction.

  
Because Mingyu will admit, he’s never been that great at acknowledging his problems.

  
Wonwoo, though, had made it quite clear that he was going to learn how.


	2. High hopes, it takes me back to when we started.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In all honesty, Wonwoo was an okay guy. Angel. Thing. Mingyu didn’t know how to feel.

As it turned out, angels didn’t have wings. Wonwoo admitted this much to Mingyu’s disappointment.

 

“It’s just a myth,” he revealed, walking in strides next to Mingyu, seeming to stretch his legs infinitely farther than they actually reached. Mingyu wondered how he was keeping up, considering the height of his legs as compared to Mingyu’s own. Every time he glanced over, though, Wonwoo was right there. They had been talking for a while about the common misconceptions about what Wonwoo was, and Mingyu spat questions like fireballs in the angel’s direction. As Mingyu had dejectedly learned, Wonwoo had no wings, he couldn’t talk to God whenever he wanted, and he certainly couldn’t turn back time. Wonwoo had also let him know of a few instances in which he had made himself known in the past (according to him, Mingyu had been quite the hazard as a  _ baby, _ and therefore had no recollection of any angel ever saving his ass while he still wore diapers). The two had spent almost an hour and a half trekking down into civilization, and Mingyu had grown increasingly paranoid on the way, but Wonwoo didn’t pay anything any mind. His face was set, passive against all the human action happening as they entered town.

 

“They’re all looking at me,” Mingyu confessed, talking to Wonwoo from the corner of his mouth. It was true; the people hanging around on the streets only had eyes for him as if he were some jungle animal emerging from the forest. “Why aren’t they paying  _ you _ any attention, huh?”

 

“Because they can’t see me.” Wonwoo’s voice remained steady. With every question Mingyu asked, the angel would give him an answer in the most pragmatic voice. He was like a walking textbook.

 

“They can’t see you?” Mingyu repeated.

 

“Not if I don’t want them to.”

 

So, he left it at that. The two walked the streets until Mingyu led him back to his own house. Upon entering, Mingyu made sure to shut the lock on the door so that it wouldn’t click closed as loud as normal. Much to his dismay, however, when he and Wonwoo crept past the living room to get to Mingyu’s bedroom, his parents were sitting expectantly on the couch. Wonwoo had silent laughter plastered all over his face when they leaped up and nearly tackled their son to the ground, weeping and yelling and kissing his cheeks all at once. When Mingyu had finally convinced them that yes, he was fine, and _ no,  _ he hadn’t been kidnapped or doing drugs or selling his body, he continued on into his room, closing the door once Wonwoo drifted inside. Something Mingyu had noticed immediately was that his note was open and cast aside to the floor. In his mind, he imagined his parents reading it, and the thought sent cold shivers up his spine.

 

Almost naturally, Wonwoo bent down to pick it up.

 

“No!” Mingyu reached over spastically and ripped the letter from the angel’s hands, who willingly let him take it. He raised an eyebrow but made no effort to combat Mingyu, who tore the paper to shreds before tossing the handfuls into the trash can beside his desk.

 

“I guess I, uh, wasn’t meant to read that,” Wonwoo pointed out. Mingyu shook his head. There was a throbbing in his temples that he hadn’t noticed until now when everything was still and silent. Slowly, he lowered himself to sit on the edge of his bed.

 

“No,” he sighed, “you weren’t. Sorry. It’s kinda embarrassing.”

 

“Eh,” the angel shrugged. He sat down on the rug underneath Mingyu’s feet; sitting Indian-style, like a schoolchild, he seemed much smaller than he did while standing. “I’ve probably seen worse. There are many other angels who also see worse, so you shouldn’t feel the need to hide things from me.”

 

Mingyu felt a little more at ease hearing that he wasn’t exactly an oddity. Then again, this was a total stranger who suddenly knew everything about him, and quite frankly, going from having no friends, social life, and a strained familial relationship to conversing with a godly being about how many times he had almost drowned, choked, or ran out into traffic was giving Mingyu extreme whiplash. Normalcy in his own solitude was the seat belt on this roller coaster he was riding, but Wonwoo, unknowingly, had snipped it in half.

 

“The last bedroom I was in,” Wonwoo pondered aloud, looking around, “was where my last human assignment killed herself.”

 

Mingyu almost gasped, but caught himself. Wonwoo met his eyes. He expected him to look sad, or distraught, or even angry, but it was like looking at a statue; when Wonwoo showed emotion, Mingyu wanted to be the first to know.

 

“That’s...that’s kinda terrible.”

 

Wonwoo nodded. “Now you see why I couldn’t let you hit the ground.”

 

Silence. Mingyu felt uncomfortable static fill the air. It seemed to him as though some weighted secret had just been placed on his shoulders for him to hold like a kind of twisted version of the story of Atlas. Mingyu concealed his awkwardness, though, and kept his face set, looking anywhere but where Wonwoo sat until he couldn’t contain it any longer. He looked down. 

 

Wonwoo seemed content enough on the floor, but it was making him nervous that he continued on staring at each wall of Mingyu’s room. It wasn’t anything special; the paint was a dismal gray concealed by a few posters and his bookshelves, filled with things he had yet to read. There was the guitar, sitting in the corner on a stand collecting dust, and Mingyu remembered the moment he took a step into midair and how desperately he recalled wanting to learn to play it. The strings had never produced notes. Maybe, in some other life, his fingers would be nimble enough to maneuver them.

 

Wonwoo must’ve caught him looking at it. “Do you play?” he asked, standing up and walking over to pick the instrument up in his arms. 

 

Mingyu smiled. “Not at all. Do you?”

 

Snorting, Wonwoo strummed the strings, eliciting a noise Mingyu guessed was supposed to sound right. He wouldn’t know otherwise. “Hah.  _ Do _ I.”

 

A split second later, one of the strings broke and popped up, catching Wonwoo on the cheek. Wincing, he placed the guitar back down, and Mingyu was trying to hold back tears from laughter. Wonwoo just shook his head, rubbing the spot where the string had gotten him. “Shut up,” he mumbled, and Mingyu watched patches of red rise up in his cheekbones.

 

“Angels can blush,” he pointed out, finally hiccuping out of his laughter.

 

“We can,” yawned Wonwoo. Mingyu felt bad for pestering him, but it wasn’t every day you met an angel. Angel. The word still creeped him out, but he supposed having an angel hanging over your head was better than nothing. He could be dead right now. If he were dead (Mingyu tried focusing on the positive side of his failed attempt), he wouldn’t be laughing with an angel.  _ His _ angel. He was basically a glorified babysitter. As much as he felt bad for making Wonwoo worry, he also wondered why he had taken so long to notice his ‘human assignment’ was feeling lower than down in the dumps. Mingyu wouldn’t bother asking, though, considering how little feeling Wonwoo had shown when he had brought up the last girl he had watched over. In the back of his mind, Mingyu pictured it: Wonwoo staring blankly as some poor person (he imagined her as his own age, and it made him feel queasy) took her own life.

 

That had been him, though. Well, could’ve been. He didn’t want to put any person through that, especially not a second time.

 

“She was your age,” Wonwoo said out of the blue, returning to his position on the floor. It was quiet, thoughtful almost, and Mingyu blinked in surprise. Had he...just read his mind?

 

“H-how did you know I was—”

 

“It was all over your face, Mingyu. I’m an angel, not an idiot.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Her name is something I can’t exactly remember,” Wonwoo admitted, biting the inside of his cheek. “It happened, oh, thirty or forty years ago? I spent a lot of time in Detainment—basically like angel time-out when your assignment dies and you don’t do shit to stop it—and then when you were born, I got a reprieve. So in a way,” he smiled bitterly up at Mingyu, and the pit of guilt was suddenly back in his stomach, “you were  _ my _ angel.”

 

“That...is cheesy as hell.”

 

Wonwoo was giggling like a child, and Mingyu couldn’t help but feel the warmth he had felt when he had proven to him what Mingyu had doubted. The way his face went from serious to carefree in such a short time...well, it couldn’t be anything short of magical. Looking at him, Mingyu found it hard to see past the iciness of the angular face, the sharp points of his eyes, and the calculating demeanor. But when he was laughing, the choirs started singing and something buzzed around in the air like flurries of honeybees. In a way, it felt sticky and gross. It left him wanting more. He shook the feeling furiously from his chest.

 

They spent the next few minutes talking about his parents, and Mingyu found that Wonwoo was learning something completely new. Every time he’d mention something they’d do as a family, the angel would make an exclama tion, actually openly showing curiosity. He’d ask questions, digging deeper into how his family worked, and Mingyu let himself ramble on about the process his mother had for making  Yukgaejang, the stew he liked the most, or how his father got so enthusiastic about basketball that he often broke glassware while watching it. He couldn’t repress his love for them, despite their wariness of him, and it made him even more guilty as he recounted all the times he was truly happy. Talking about it made it better, he was finding. If only he had known Wonwoo would be such a good listener, such a good way to bring out all the positive things he had locked away in his mind, Mingyu didn’t doubt he would’ve thought extra hard about not jumping off a damn cliff.

 

Looking back on it now, he was beyond grateful. Upset, but less so now that the face of the problem was showing so much interest in his life. At least someone cared.

 

“What day is it?” Wonwoo interjected.

 

“Thursday,” Mingyu said, suddenly realizing his own words. “Shit, I have school tomorrow.” With a groan, he threw his head back onto his pillows, flopping down like a fish. Wonwoo got up from the ground, pacing in front of the bed. Watching through attentive eyes, Mingyu realized the angel was wringing his wrists back and forth —something Mingyu found himself doing when preparing to take a test he had never studied for. He looked worried. The crease in his forehead was exceptionally deep, but Mingyu said nothing.

 

“School?” Wonwoo stopped abruptly, gazing across the room at Mingyu. “You’ll be gone all day?”

 

“What, thinking of cheating on me with another person?”

 

“Not funny, and no, I just...have some business to take care of.”

 

“Business?” Mingyu prompted, and Wonwoo looked as though he were mentally smacking himself for opening his own mouth. “What kind of business?”

 

“None of yours, that’s what kind.” There was playful venom soaking through Wonwoo’s comment, and Mingyu didn’t elaborate. If he wanted to keep to himself, it was completely understandable to him. Mingyu, after all, was a master at keeping his own manners concealed in front of parents and classmates alike. Obviously, no one had bothered to look past the disguise. If Wonwoo wanted to keep things secret, by all means, he deserved to. At least...that’s how it worked for a compliant person. Mingyu didn’t identify as such.

 

“Okay. I get it. You know  _ all _ this stuff about me, but I can’t be in on your secret…”

 

Mingyu winked jokingly, but Wonwoo’s smirk was set in a line, apparently trying not to react. The blush was back. “Look,” he said, sitting down at the foot of the bed where Mingyu’s feet were, “it’s angel stuff.  _ Heaven _ stuff. It’s not that exciting.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Positive.”

 

Wonwoo said nothing else when Mingyu went on with annoying him. It was cute; he grew increasingly exasperated with everything Mingyu said to try and make him feel guilty, even when Wonwoo claimed angels could not feel human emotions like guilt. Mingyu called out his bluff, but the angel appeared humorless, which made the other boy even more curious.  _ It must be nice to not feel things, _ he thought. Nothing like grief, jealousy, or any of the stupid things Mingyu experienced on the daily. Being an angel must be ideal. When he expressed this sentiment to Wonwoo, he had only given him a look that seared Mingyu’s own cheeks red-hot, indicating that perhaps he hadn’t said something good. Wonwoo didn’t respond verbally, though, which made Mingyu feel even worse. It hadn’t even been a full day; he didn’t want to be on his bad side already.

 

Time passed quickly; a look at the clock on his desk told Mingyu it was well past his bedtime considering he had to be up for school in the morning.

 

“Do you, uh, sleep?” Mingyu asked. Wonwoo had been staring in the standing mirror in the corner for about ten minutes, touching his face and pulling at his skin in a way that made Mingyu, as an innocent observer, feel as though he were the intruder. 

 

“No. I don’t need to. You do, though.” At this, the angel turned around, eyes scanning Mingyu’s face. “You said you had school tomorrow. I should get going.”

 

“Going? But, you like, just got here.”

 

“Yes, and I don’t want you awake all night, so I’ll be back in the morning maybe, depending on how soon you leave…?”

 

“Seven, sharp,” Mingyu said as quick as the words left Wonwoo’s mouth. He didn’t know why he was feeling so neglected all of a sudden. The way he had put it, it sounded like Wonwoo wouldn’t be with him at all the next day. Even though Mingyu had already spent all of his life not knowing about him, the possibility of losing him for that long just made Mingyu more anxious about dying in some freak accident. As usual, he overthought everything. 

 

Wonwoo frowned. “I don’t know, Mingyu. I might be too busy when you leave.”

 

Yawning, Mingyu’s eyes watered and almost shut. The fatigue he had been pushing away had finally caught up to him as stealthy as a snake. He couldn’t be bothered to hide it, which made Wonwoo cross his arms, showing how true his intention of making Mingyu better really was. In all honesty, Wonwoo was an okay guy. Angel. Thing. Mingyu didn’t know how to feel. It was like having a friend in kindergarten, moving away, and then visiting decades later; there was some underlying connection there, but Mingyu couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Wonwoo knew him, but Mingyu only knew about angels, not specifically the one standing in front of him. The whole name thing still rubbed him the wrong way, how Wonwoo was not actually  _ Wonwoo, _ and the face of the boy he was growing familiar with was not actually anyone that existed in the present tense. All of it was so mind boggling and strange, but then again, Mingyu was happy for the distraction.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Wonwoo said, voice emerging through the sound of Mingyu’s thoughts. His mind blanks, bottoming out on a response so that he’s left grasping at excuses that aren’t there. Why does he want an excuse for him to stay? The question Mingyu asks himself doesn’t seem to have an answer, so he just sits, blinking, before nodding.

 

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you..?”

 

“Tomorrow.” Wonwoo states it with an affirmative tone, something that reminds Mingyu of when his mother forces him to attend doctor’s appointments, clearly indicating without any room for him to argue or speculate.

 

“Tomorrow,” he repeats, “yeah. Tomorrow. Good night, sleep well,” Mingyu says before catching himself. “Or, y’know, whatever you do instead of sleep.”

 

“You too,” chuckles Wonwoo, and like fog on glass, he’s wiped away in front of Mingyu’s eyes as if some unseen force had taken the back of its hand to his figure. He blinks, squints his eyes, then flashes them open just to make sure he isn’t going crazy. His bedroom is still the same bedroom, with no sign of any extraterrestrial being anywhere. Mingyu takes this opportunity to wonder if guardian angels could be prayed to, but his eyes end up falling shut out of sheer exhaustion before he can even conjure up a prayer to be said.

 

* * *

  
  


Mingyu trudged to school the next morning, backpack feeling heavier than ever, with a mist occupying his brain and a barrier between him and the rest of the world, as always.

 

Wonwoo watched; the exosphere was a cold and dreary place (not that he could feel the chill, but the description was still fitting enough for the limitless expanse between Heaven, his home, and the Earth below). His mind also felt a bit compromised, considering he’d come up here to recharge. Being on Earth for almost a full day had punched him straight in the gut, right where it made him feel the most like molasses. He was young; surely he could keep his stamina up. All the questions Mingyu had bombarded him with, as charming as it had been, had withered him up into dead leaves on the ground. All he needed to do was breathe, take his mind off of it, and…

 

“Dude, you daydreaming or something?”

 

The voice comes out of nowhere, just as everything in the exosphere does, and Wonwoo focuses his eyes on the cherub-like face inches from his own. He waves the other angel off like dust, shooing him away as does someone annoyed by summer flies. The blonde-headed pest just snickers, cunning and quite devilish, holding his hands up to protect himself.

 

“Ah,” Wonwoo greets him, offering a smile that isn’t exactly out of joy. “Totally didn’t expect to see you here.” He utters the other angel’s name, and it tastes like grape juice, spring air, and slightly lukewarm lemons. The feeling isn’t completely unpleasant, but he was unused to it nonetheless. It had been a while.

 

“You can call me Kwon Soonyoung, now,  _ Jeon Wonwoo.” _

 

“Kwon Soonyoung? Wow, I’d wager to say my earthly name is much better.”

 

The other angel, Soonyoung, pouts and shrugs his shoulders. He looks so relaxed; in a way, Wonwoo envies him, but then he remembers why he’s come up here in the first place. Suddenly, the chubby cheeks of the other angel’s human form don’t seem so appealing, and the way his lips form a plumped circle just does something to make Wonwoo wish he had befriended anyone else besides an angel so full of mirth it was ridiculous.

 

“How’s your assignment?” Soonyoung asks him, nonchalantly throwing it out there before Wonwoo has a chance to avoid the subject. He mentally facepalms, smacking his forehead with a deafening  _ thud. _

 

“He’s doing just fine.” The lie tastes sour slipping through his teeth. He wasn’t exactly sure if Soonyoung caught on, but he seemed to accept the half-assed answer as the truth, giving Wonwoo a look that could’ve been pride, but more easily mistaken for mocking.

 

“I never thought you’d get over  _ last _ time,” he offers him, throwing a bone to a dog that was not there to catch it. Somewhere in the pit of his chest, Wonwoo feels anger bubbling up through the spaces in his ribcage, threatening to spill from his mouth if he couldn’t take Soonyoung’s words with a grain of salt.

 

“Well, I did.” Wonwoo puts it simply. It’s another lie that picks away at his heart. Like always, he pushes it away, not recognizing it, not wanting to picture the day he doesn’t want to remember but can’t help it when he does. It’s excruciating.

 

Soonyoung, for once, doesn’t continue to pester him but shoots him a look that isn’t seen all too often: sympathy. 

 

“I just don’t want to see you so broken again,” he says, voice much quieter than it had been, “and you can’t keep doing that to yourself. Don’t go giving your soul to those things.” Soonyoung points a finger aggressively toward the Earth below; it’s visible as through a magnifying glass focused on wherever Wonwoo is thinking, and he’s thinking of Mingyu’s school, where he’s certain Mingyu must be daydreaming. He’s known him forever, Wonwoo thinks, then recalls it’s only been two decades, not a lifetime for him, not even a blink of an eye.

 

“Humans,” Soonyoung’s tirade goes on, “are a mess. They don’t understand you, they don’t understand me, and you can’t just go falling in love whenever —”

 

“Okay.” Wonwoo holds up a hand to stop him before he ends up someplace he doesn’t want to be. He’s heard enough about love; at this point, so many people have told him it’s his biggest fault. He’s tired of hearing about how messed up he is, how God must’ve made a mistake, but Wonwoo knew it couldn’t be God—He made no mistake. In the eyes of angels, though, Wonwoo was easy. It’s all he was. Too easy to get attached, too easy to let himself break down over a life that wasn’t his own but merely a snapshot on a shelf to view every so often. It was unfair. From all his eons observing humans, Wonwoo felt closer to them than he did his own brothers and sisters in Heaven. It was unfair, yes, so  _ unfair, _ but cruel most of all.

 

“I gotta go,” Soonyoung says, finalizing his criticisms. The cheeky smile is back; Wonwoo is almost glad to see it. “Good luck.”

 

He pops away, presumably heading back to Earth. Wonwoo had heard so much about Soonyoung’s own assignment; while he had been kept almost in nonexistence during Detainment, updates had floated around about how efficient his watch had been. His human was now in his seventies or eighties, Wonwoo couldn’t exactly remember, but this was certainly an anomaly amongst their community; hardly anyone made it that far in terms of human lifespan, and it was definitely impressive that an impatient and dicey angel like Soonyoung had been able to run the marathon of life for so long. Wonwoo only wished it was him being praised. All of his assignments had died young,  _ almost _ all of them because of their geographic locations and lack of technology able to aid them. All of them, except  _ her. _ There he went again, remembering things he didn’t want to. He wanted to hit himself to wake up from the daze.

 

As a distraction, Wonwoo peers down to Earth, where he can plainly see Mingyu sitting in class asleep. He snickered. Of course, someone like Mingyu was bound to be drooling at his desk, disregarding all form of learning. It was sad, though, Wonwoo noted, because his assignment was all the way in the back of the classroom alone, no friends around him.

 

The relatability was almost comical, then Wonwoo cited the fact that Mingyu must be strong as steel for putting up with school the day after thinking he was going to kill himself. Suddenly, it wasn’t as funny.

 

Wonwoo watched him for a while. His mannerisms were so blatantly obvious and familiar to him, even from all the way up here. When Mingyu walked, his height made it so that if he threw his shoulders back, he thought he was too scary looking, so he had a little bit of a hunch with each step as to demean that. When he wrote, Wonwoo noticed that his penmanship was still extremely bad, almost illegible. It had always been like that since Mingyu had first started writing.

 

_ Humans are exhausting, _ thought Wonwoo. He felt more present than Mingyu’s parents. He felt like he could  _ be _ his parent, but that thought weirded him out and he threw it from his mind.

 

Mingyu had been the only thing to look forward to since Wonwoo’s accident with his previous assignment. He had been waiting for so long for an excuse to meet him; up until yesterday, he’d simply watched from afar, only ever interfering in the slightest ways. Mingyu had wanted to end his life, but Wonwoo had taken it as an insult to his ability to protect him. Mingyu, of course, was oblivious to this, and maybe he always would be. Wonwoo still had much to learn, though. As he had always observed from far away, he was assured that he’d still have to get to know him as a normal person would.

 

Wonwoo had nearly perfected the art of being normal. As normal as he could be to any human being, as an angel, as something completely otherworldly.

 

He was going to talk to him. Discover who he was. It was the least he could do, considering he’d almost failed him once.

 

_ Mingyu, I hope you’re doing okay down there. _

 

It only took a few seconds to hear Mingyu’s thoughts echo back in Wonwoo’s own head. The mechanism that allowed him to make himself present in Mingyu’s brain was something Wonwoo hadn’t fully tapped into, but it was going to be useful nonetheless. All he had to do was think of it as talking to him.

 

_ Wonwoo, why can I hear you? Where are you? _

 

_ I’m watching you, sorry for being creepy, but I thought I’d check in. No more near-death experiences, right? _

 

Wonwoo feared he was coming off as clingy. The last thing he wanted to do was be clingy, considering how shortly Mingyu has known of him. But it didn’t seem that way when he heard the hint of a smile in Mingyu’s next thought.

 

_ Right. Now that I have you, it wouldn’t be right to worry you. Like...I’m sorry about yesterday. I was being selfish.  _

 

_ No, _ Wonwoo thinks too suddenly, without anything to back it up. He wracks his brain for things to say and he can almost feel Mingyu anticipating it.  _ It isn’t selfish. Don’t think that, because you did the natural thing in your situation. I’m just trying to help you feel normal. _

 

Down on Earth, Mingyu gazes out the window his desk is beside, tuning out the monotonous drone of his teacher’s voice at the front of the room. The clouds drift past, looming like silent giants, and past them, the sky is powder blue and almost soft-looking. Up there, he thinks, Wonwoo is watching him. The notion is freaking him out, but he’s learning not to question it. Normal. Wonwoo’s voice settles down in his mind and shifts around all the adjectives Mingyu would use to describe himself. Normal has never been one of them.

 

_ Well, _ he thinks in response, a wistful feeling fluttering like nervous butterflies in his stomach,  _ maybe you’ll be able to do that. I’ve never been able to, so let’s hope it all works out. _

  
_ Of course, _ Wonwoo agreed, voice rumbling like thunder into Mingyu’s thoughts,  _ let’s hope. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think so far!  
> I'm planning to update weekly as far as this goes, but it all depends on feedback I get, if any.  
> Thanks for reading this far, and look forward to next time!
> 
> baby you are my angeeeEEeeEEellllllllllll~  
> Okay I'll leave now.


	3. It caught me by surprise in this town of glass and ice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu was new. He was exciting.

Earth was a very messy place. It was filled with rotten people, from criminals, thieves, and murderers to heartbreakers and homewreckers. Quite frankly, looking at Earth through a microscope might reveal what caused humans to act so brashly sometimes, whether it be something in the water or because of the way DNA happened to be strung. Either way, Wonwoo was well aware that people as a whole race were infinitely difficult to understand, try as he might.

 

For example: the typical senior in high school was dirty, crude, and tried way too hard to be cool. Wonwoo could not comprehend why, but then again, he’d never been a high schooler.

 

He came down from the exosphere with the intention of visiting Mingyu. What he  _ didn’t  _ intend for was to be thrust into crowded hallways full of loud human activity and voices that were unable to be turned down. He was tempted to cover his ears, but Wonwoo reminded himself he wanted to be seen. As he had wished, the students he passed eyed him like prey on the savanna, sizing him up, possibly wondering who the new kid was. Mingyu, of course, just  _ had _ to go to the only high school in the area, which meant everyone knew everyone and certainly a disturbance in the normal crowd was to be felt like a shockwave.

 

Wonwoo was out of his element. High schoolers were rough. He now understood why Mingyu always felt so out of place.

 

Desperately trying to find his assignment, Wonwoo kept his eyes glued to his feet. The shoes he wore were typical of the school uniform, unfortunately, and they made his steps clumsier against his will. The fear of crashing into someone stuck with him; his eyes glazed upward, not meeting those of the girls who stood in huddles against the hallway’s walls, looking over in his direction and letting out bursts of giggles. He tuned it all out. He had stared long enough at his human form to understand why they were acting in such a way—although, he wouldn’t have paid them mind anyway. He couldn’t be worried about what groups of silly girls thought of him. All he cared about right now was finding Mingyu.

 

While distracted, he failed to notice the person emerging from an open doorway right in front of him, and his body crashed into whoever it was, nearly knocking himself over in the process.

 

“Hey! Watch where you’re—oh?”

 

The person, now with a voice, turned to face Wonwoo, and the angel nearly choked on his inhale. It was a student, only a tad bit shorter than himself, and his eyes, upon seeing Wonwoo, turned upward as he smiled. Wonwoo felt taken aback; this kid’s teeth were so white that his smile felt blinding.

 

“Um,” Wonwoo stammered, “sorry about—”

 

“You must be the new kid!” The student held a hand out, and before Wonwoo even had a chance to raise his own, it was taken from his side into a firm handshake. His shoulder almost popped from the force.

 

“How do you know I’m—”

 

“I’ve heard  _ everyone _ talking about some weird guy that’s roaming the halls, and I thought to myself, well  _ that’s _ strange, considering nobody new ever comes here and I think I would’ve been the first to greet them, but I guess I was wrong!”

 

Wonwoo almost did a double-take. This guy sure could talk.

 

“I’m sorry, I almost forgot to introduce myself,” the student said, still gripping Wonwoo’s hand with the excitability of an electron. The smile had softened, but the guy’s eyebrows were still pointed up in friendliness, which Wonwoo could respect. “I’m Lee Seokmin! Senior, optimist, and resident school yo-yo master, but that’s a different story.”

 

“That’s...great,” Wonwoo manages to interrupt hesitantly, crinkling his eyes in an attempt to not look as cold. He almost forcibly takes his hand from Seokmin’s and clenches it by his side, shaking off the stiffness in his knuckles. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have someone I really need to find.”

 

“Who?” Seokmin asks, grabbing Wonwoo’s arm as he walks away. As Wonwoo tries to continue down the hallway, the student follows him, the smile still present on his face.  _ Jeesh,  _ thinks Wonwoo,  _ this guy genuinely seems happy to meet me. Is he always like this?  _ “I know everyone here, and you’re new, so I’d be able to help!”

 

“Do you know Kim Mingyu?” sighed the angel, not expecting Seokmin to answer the way he wanted. To his surprise, though, the student nodded immediately. Wonwoo was at a loss. To him, he had thought Mingyu was invisible to the rest of the student body...at least, that’s how it had always seemed.

 

“Of course!” Seokmin exclaims. The smile turns into a frown just as quick as lightening, and Wonwoo pauses for him to think and get out what he looks like he’s going to say. “But he’s really quiet. Are you sure you have the right person?”

 

Wonwoo blinked. “Yep.”

 

“Well,” began Seokmin, pulling Wonwoo up against the lockers to the side of the hall. “If I remember correctly, he always sits in the library for the lunch period which is—” Seokmin looks around and sees the time on a clock mounted on the wall— “right now.”

 

“Great,” Wonwoo expresses, letting go of all the anxious tension that had been mounting in his head. “If you could tell me how to get to the library, that’d be appreciated.”

 

“Um, no. I’ll take you there. We’ll go together.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Because.” Seokmin is suddenly walking again, and Wonwoo is compelled to follow. “You might get lost, or kidnapped, or beaten up. Plus,” he shoots a sly smile over his shoulder before turning his head back around. “I’ve always wanted to talk to Mingyu. He’s always been slightly intimidating and  _ way _ out of my league, so I’ve avoided him, but you seem to know him and this is my door of opportunity, wide open!”

 

Wonwoo opts to remain silent, not even bothering trying to argue or pull away from this overeager ray of literal sunshine. He doesn’t even want to  _ know _ what Seokmin means when he said Mingyu was ‘out of his league.’ He takes the moments that they’re walking to pray to every one of the objects residing in Heaven, making sure to thank God for his patience and lack of a short fuse. If he had been Soonyoung, he would’ve burnt this guy to a crisp already.  _ Breath, Wonwoo, it’s okay, _ he tells himself. Seokmin is much more pleasant than anyone else at this school as far as he’s seen, and he’s definitely grateful that it had been him to bump into and not a rotten apple like some other student might’ve been.

 

Seokmin throws the doors to what looks like the library open, revealing a widespread array of bookshelves all under one low ceiling. The fluorescent lights flicker slightly; Wonwoo notices that there aren’t many people around besides the occasional underclassman and the librarian sitting at the front desk. It’s obvious why Mingyu must go in here for lunch. Seokmin heads down an aisle between shelves, craning his neck all around, looking for Mingyu.

 

When he finds him, he tugs Wonwoo along down the row. Mingyu is alone, sitting reclined in a beanbag chair in the darkest corner that there is. Upon seeing Seokmin, Mingyu’s eyes narrow, but then Wonwoo peeks out from behind him and the expression disintegrates.

 

“Wonwoo! What are you doing here?” Mingyu says quizzically, and Wonwoo notices the smile he’s suppressing. “I thought you were, um, busy.” His eyes travel to Seokmin, who awkwardly shifts from the balls of his feet to his heels.

 

“I was,” says Wonwoo, taking a seat on the floor beside Mingyu. Seokmin follows. “Now I’m not. Oh, this is—”

 

“Lee Seokmin,” Mingyu finishes Wonwoo’s introduction. The angel swears he can see the tips of Seokmin’s ears turning pink under the fluff of his hair. “I know him. He’s in my grade.”

 

“Y-you know me?” Suddenly, the smiling student from minutes before is a puddle of a different person, a  _ shy _ person, and Wonwoo almost laughs out loud at the characterization shift. “How?”

 

Mingyu, who was in the process of sipping from his water bottle, gulped down the drink and shrugged in response, licking his lips. “You’re a senior. I’m a senior. I know everyone, but no one knows me.”

 

_ How sad, _ Wonwoo thinks. He meets Mingyu’s eyes, but they look distraught even in the dim lighting of the library. The atmosphere would be nice to someone like Wonwoo, except for the distinct moldy smell of the carpet and the water stains that spread on the ceiling tiles. The smile that had been creeping up on Mingyu’s lips emerged little by little, although he waited to say any more out of hesitance brought on by Wonwoo’s semi-unwelcome guest. Seokmin seemed oblivious, though. He was beaming, smiling from ear to ear, and Wonwoo was still baffled by how striking it was. Angels could be dazzling, but he’d never met any  _ human _ with a smile that could compare.

 

Mingyu must’ve noticed him staring. “Wonwoo, I, uh, well, what are you doing here?”

 

“I decided to, I mean, I thought I should come to school. It’s been a week since I moved in, you know, and it was time for me to get back to a normal routine.” Wonwoo was fibbing so exquisitely and Mingyu, thankfully, caught onto the fabrication. He couldn’t just say he had come from layers above Earth after seeing Mingyu from an angel’s perspective, close to Heaven, because Seokmin surely would’ve been confused. It was common courtesy to not expose himself to humans that weren’t his. Mingyu was biting his lip; his snaggletooth was fully visible, and Wonwoo made a mental note that it intrigued him. Imperfection was something he always found delightful.

 

“Right!” exclaimed the other boy, and Seokmin tilted his head.

 

“You just moved here?” he asked, addressing Wonwoo. “Why?”

 

“My parents got jobs,” Wonwoo expressed, furthering his untrue story. “I moved into the house next to his,” he said, pointing at Mingyu, who nodded profusely. “I met him the day I got here and figured we’d be going to the same high school.”

 

“So you’re a senior, too?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Seokmin laughed. “You look a little old to be a senior.”

 

“Well, I started late. I am a little old.” At this, he caught Mingyu’s eye, and one subtle wink later, he was turning red from his cheeks to his forehead. Mingyu was so.. _.cute, _ Wonwoo thought, but in the most innocent way. Maybe it wasn’t  _ just _ a Mingyu thing, but the way his eyes shone whenever Wonwoo talked made him want to talk even more, especially when it came to answering any questions he had. It was like that with all humans when angels first get a chance to make themselves known. Wonwoo had been lucky; his human asked questions that were silly and refreshing after time and time again on Earth listening to the same redundancy he had grown accustomed to. Mingyu was new. He was exciting.

 

“Seokmin,” says Mingyu, interrupting Wonwoo’s thoughts, “why are you here? Not to sound rude or anything.”

 

“I figured I’d show this guy around, maybe keep an eye on him. New students don’t come all that often, and I do have the title of ‘friendliest senior.’” Wonwoo suppresses a smirk as Seokmin lays on the excessive charm. Mingyu, though, didn’t appear to be buying it.

 

“Uh-huh. If you’re so  _ friendly, _ why haven’t you or any of that group you hang around with ever made an effort to be friends with  _ me?” _

 

Wonwoo senses the underlying jealousy in Mingyu’s accusing statement; Seokmin’s cheeks are getting redder by the second. So it turned out Mingyu didn’t want to be alone after all, Wonwoo noted. If he was so hung up on Seokmin never talking to him despite the whole ‘friends with everyone’ gambit, it was obvious that he was more saddened than contented with not ever talking to anyone in school. Wonwoo was also a little curious as to who Mingyu was referring to when he talked about Seokmin’s other friends.

 

“I..I don’t—”

 

“He thinks you’re hot,” Wonwoo spat out, intervening before Seokmin could stammer any longer. Multiple things happened at the same time once Wonwoo’s spoke; a very flustered Seokmin attempted to reach over and cover his mouth with his hands, Mingyu burst out laughing in the middle of a sip of water, liquid flying from his mouth, and the librarian uttered a curse from her place at her desk, telling the three boys to shut up or leave if they wanted to be rowdy.

 

“You asshole!” Seokmin brought his fury boiling down to a whisper, but Wonwoo was confused by the grin on his face despite his tone. Modesty wasn’t something he cared about, as was obvious by the facade of anger. “Looks like I can’t trust a new kid with my harbored secrets.” Seokmin clicked his tongue. Mingyu, on the other hand, was wiping his mouth with the back of a hand, removing the moisture he had tried to withhold. 

 

Wonwoo just chuckled. “I’m sorry. I was trying to save you the embarrassment.”

 

“I gotta get to know him first!” Seokmin gestured to Mingyu. “At least give me a chance to woo him before letting him  _ know _ he’s hot.”

 

Something stirred in Wonwoo’s chest. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. He let it subside, though, because Mingyu looked like he wanted to butt in, any sign of discomfort gone after Wonwoo had broken all the ice between the two seniors.

 

“You think  _ I’m _ hot? Why?”

 

“Is that even a question?” Seokmin scoffed. His eyes softened and the blush on his cheekbones deepened. Mingyu was also slightly pink, Wonwoo noticed, which made him feel odd.  _ Be normal for just one second, okay? _ He was scolding himself; Wonwoo, after all, was a master at being normal. “Have you ever looked in a mirror, Kim Mingyu? Because damn.”

 

“I didn’t think..well, I didn’t know you played for that team,” Mingyu stuttered.

 

“What team? The gay one?”

 

“I-I guess.”

 

“Well, now you know. I'm _so_ sorry you had to find out like this,” Seokmin sighed, faking the distraught ache in his voice. Mingyu was beaming.

 

“I’m sorry,” Seokmin turned to Wonwoo, who had nearly torn through the skin of his cheek with all the pressure his molars were putting into biting it. He hadn’t noticed it was hurting. “This must be extremely awkward for you..?”

 

His voice trailed off into question; Wonwoo realized he had forgotten his name. “Jeon Wonwoo.” For a second, he had almost said his  _ actual _ name, the name that would’ve killed anyone in close proximity, and the knowledge numbed him. Even being on Earth for such a short amount of time confused his angel mind to no end; Heaven was a much easier place to be.

 

“Jeon Wonwoo,” repeated Seokmin.  _ Yes, that’s right, _ he thought.  _ Jeon Wonwoo.  _ “If you don’t mind, I’ve gotta get going. I like to be early for my classes in the afternoons after lunch, and the bell’s ringing in like, ten minutes, so I’ll be off.” He got to his feet and let his eyes drift to Mingyu.

 

“It was nice to meet you.” He winked. Wonwoo wanted to gag.

 

“Y-you too,” Mingyu was sputtering like a leaky faucet. The feeling of unknown heaviness still hadn’t left Wonwoo’s chest. “I guess I’ll see you around? If you’d like to be friends?”

 

Seokmin nodded, the bright smile he had greeted Wonwoo with dazzling and full of life covering his face. Suddenly, it wasn’t so endearing to him anymore. “Of course! See you guys around!” With that, he left, heading out and bowing in deep apology to the librarian who looked up only to push her glasses further onto the bridge of her nose. 

 

Wonwoo was left sitting cross-legged on the ground, holding his hands where his legs folded. Mingyu had returned to his normal color; he was able to let himself relax back into his bean bag chair. Wonwoo thought it looked very comfortable and the hardness of the floor despite the carpeting was starting to get to him. On the inside, he felt like saying a ton of things to the boy who sat silently in front of him. However, he could only manage one thing.

 

“If it helps, _ I  _ think you’re hot, too. Now at least you have a second opinion.”

 

Mingyu finally met his eyes, and when he did, Wonwoo was almost delighted to see how wide they were.

 

_ “What?” _

 

“I said—”

 

“No, yeah, I heard what you said, but what? Is that not against your angel protocol or whatever? Is it illegal to think that? Will God kill me? Will God kill  _ you?” _

 

Wonwoo put a hand to his forehead, massaging his temples. Mingyu looked genuinely worried and he had to refrain from laughing as loud as he wanted to because the librarian would surely get on their case again. “Mingyu, don’t you have a class to be getting to?”

 

Almost on cue, the bell sounded and the few other students in the library began collecting their things. Mingyu’s forehead was set, brows furrowed, and Wonwoo considered making himself unseen just to mess with him. Maybe that was for another time, though.

 

“Yeah. I do. Would you like to accompany me?” He stood, throwing the strap of his book bag over his shoulder. Extending an arm to Wonwoo, he pulled the angel up with ease, and it reminded him all too much of their first meeting just days before.

 

“No, you should focus,” Wonwoo said, concealing his desire to follow him anyway. “Besides,” he continued haughtily, “you’ll have new friends to make, according to Seokmin.”

 

“You’re right!”

 

Wonwoo trailed after Mingyu out of the library and before he could get a chance to head any further down the hallway without him, Wonwoo grabbed his assignment by his tie and pulled him against the lockers lining the hallway, disregarding the other students who stared like they were some kind of zoo exhibit. Wonwoo had almost forgotten he was fully visible. Mingyu’s eyes darted down to Wonwoo’s hand wrapped around his tie, and he was turning redder than he had when Seokmin had first shown up. Wonwoo smirked.

 

“No more near-death experiences until I come back, yeah?”

 

The bob of Mingyu’s Adam's apple made Wonwoo groan inwardly. Why did his assignment have to be like  _ this? _ He would’ve been perfectly fine if Mingyu had been a crusty old man when he had tried to walk right off a cliff.

 

“Yeah. Okay.”

 

Mingyu pulled back and Wonwoo let the fabric of his tie slide through his hand. Mingyu offered a tiny wave before turning his back to the angel who stood with one shoulder leaned up against a locker. Wonwoo watched him walk; there seemed to be a pep in his step that hadn’t been there in forever, not since before rumors started flying that Mingyu was some kind of queer that forced himself on guys in the locker room, or whatever the kids had started saying about him earlier in the school year. Wonwoo was no idiot. He’d been perfectly aware of all the things Mingyu was being called as well as if there was any truth behind it. The thing about the locker room was false and disgusting as most rumors were, but the queer part? Not even Wonwoo could put a finger on it.

 

Then again, why was he caring so much about his predisposition? It wasn’t necessarily any of an angel’s business. But it was related to Mingyu’s well-being, and if it could be used as a tool against him, Wonwoo needed to know how to ease his mind about it.

 

Oh well. He couldn’t worry himself too much; meeting your assignment was something that all angels had to deal with, and Wonwoo had certainly been in this position before, albeit not for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

 

Infinitely grateful for the school day to end, Mingyu left the building with a headache threatening his happiness. Before it could fully creep up on him, he was rudely interrupted while thinking vacantly of what his mother must be cooking for dinner.

 

“Kim Mingyu!”

 

Mingyu’s head turned, searching for the source of the voice before Seokmin came jogging after him, school uniform jacket open and white button-down undone from the top three buttons. His hair flying back, Seokmin slowed to match the pace Mingyu was taking. As usual, a smile turned his eyes upward.

 

“Is that just how you greet people?” Mingyu asked, shying away for a moment.

 

“Your name is fun to say. Anyway, what are you doing right now?”

 

“Walking home.”

 

Seokmin rolled his eyes and Mingyu giggled. “ _ Besides _ that, you asshole.”

 

Reaching for an excuse to get away but being unable to fabricate anything believable, Mingyu sighed, shaking his head. “Nothing, why?”

 

The smile grew wider on Seokmin’s face. “Me and some buddies usually hang out at the arcade after school, and I was hoping you’d join us!”

 

“I suppose.”

 

Seokmin stopped dead in his tracks. “Seriously?”

 

“Yeah, why not?” Mingyu was putting up a huge front. Any other day, any other instance, he would’ve shot it down. The attention was nice, though. Mingyu had never been brought into any group of friends and maybe this was a sign that things could start turning up. Judging by Seokmin’s reaction, he had expected him to protest or refuse, but Mingyu had given him exactly what he’d been wanting. That realization must’ve occurred to Seokmin, who stopped looking baffled and replaced it with a smirk and a sly eyeing, something that made Mingyu feel exceptional. The butterflies started fluttering, but he didn’t really want them to. Seokmin was cute. However, he had just met him. Mingyu was as weak-willed as he was perceptive.

 

“A-alright,” stammered Seokmin, motioning for Mingyu to follow him down the crowded sidewalk in front of the school building. “Let’s go, it’s best not to keep the guys waiting!”

 

The walk to the arcade felt surprisingly natural. Seokmin had apparently heard the rumors—obviously, everyone had—and assured Mingyu he didn’t care, being gay himself. Mingyu tried to argue and say it wasn’t important but failed to make a noise as Seokmin rambled on about how much he liked boys and their lack of drama in a highly stereotypical voice. The tension was easily broken; Seokmin seemed like the person who could strike up a thrilling conversation with a lamppost, and Mingyu, as an introvert, was very thankful that the silence was filled with obnoxious laughter and questions asked about himself and what he liked. Their walk passed quickly.

 

Seokmin threw the door to the arcade open and bellowed a greeting upon stepping in. “Honey, I’m  _ home!” _

 

A voice came back in response from further into the arcade, above all the sounds of the electronics and game consoles. “Shut the fuck up, Seokmin, I’m trying to concen—oh, shit!”

 

Mingyu let the door close behind him. He blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness inside the building. Seokmin ventured in and Mingyu followed, curious as to who the owner of the very irate voice would be.

 

“Jihoon,” said Seokmin, rounding the corner to reveal three boys huddled around a retro PacMan console. The shortest—Jihoon—fixed his eyes to the screen and moved the joystick gratuitously before throwing his arms up in defeat as a ghost devoured him. “You’ll never beat my high score. It’s stayed for two years, and I expect it to be there until the end of time.”

 

Jihoon turned to face Seokmin and Mingyu felt like hiding. Lee Jihoon was, quite frankly, scary; Mingyu knew this because, in homeroom freshman year, he had snapped three pencils in half because the teacher wouldn’t let him use the bathroom. Mingyu hadn’t had a class with him since, but the image still haunted him. Now, though, a grin turned his cheeks up and his bleach-blond hair falling down to his eyes made him appear friendly enough.

 

“Who’s your friend?” One of the other boys standing beside Jihoon spoke and Mingyu recognized him as the boy who sat in front of him in math class.

 

“Guys, this is Mingyu,” Seokmin introduced him, and then motioned toward the three boys in order; Jihoon, who Mingyu already knew, and then the two others: the boy Mingyu sat behind in math, with dark hair and a gummy smile, and the other, a tall boy with curly brown hair. “Mingyu, this is Jihoon, Seungcheol, and Minghao. They’re all asshats, but I love them anyway.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Minghao huffed, holding a hand out for Mingyu to shake. “Nice to meet you!”

 

Mingyu smiled, shook the boy’s hand, and nodded. “Same.”

 

Jihoon turned his attention back to PacMan but kept up the conversation as Mingyu and Seokmin pulled up chairs to sit around the console. “So what made you agree to come here with  _ this  _ guy?” He threw his head in Seokmin’s direction and Mingyu laughed.

 

“Not sure. He sounded convincing to me.”

 

“How come we’ve never talked before?” Seungcheol asked, and Mingyu shrugged.

 

“Dunno. I don’t have many friends to begin with,” he added. Seungcheol slapped him on the back and Mingyu forced himself not to flinch.

 

“Well, now you do! Unfortunately for you, we’re not that great. Just a bunch of misfits who somehow managed to get together and bond over video games.”

 

Next to them, Jihoon grumbled. “Pfft. Misfits. You’re pathetic, Cheol.”

 

“Oh, whatever. Shut up and keep trying to break Seokmin’s record.”

 

Mingyu, having never had a serious friendship in his life, found the presence of four other boys to be strange, new, and downright hilarious. While Mingyu tried his hand at various shooter games with Seokmin, he noticed himself laughing and not caring about what it sounded like. He was making jokes, making the group crack up, and it was boosting his mood like nothing had ever done for him before. He also found himself thinking about what Wonwoo was doing and if he’d ever consider asking his angel to hang out with all of them. Surely angels needed friends, too.

 

The afternoon ended when Jihoon came ten points away from conquering Seokmin’s PacMan record. After a bout of screaming, kicking the machine, and nearly crying, the five boys left the arcade and headed their separate ways, each telling Mingyu it had been good to meet him, which made him smile wider than ever (and Seokmin had whispered to him to keep smiling, because it was ‘outrageously cute.’). Mingyu walked the twenty minutes home and upon arriving, went straight to his room and kicked his shoes off, unable to wipe the grin away.

 

Seokmin must be contagious.

 

When he wanted to sleep, Mingyu tried closing his eyes but was met by the voice of someone he hadn’t realized he’d been missing already.

 

_ How was your day?  _ Wonwoo sounded clear as glass in his mind.

 

_ Amazing. I made a bunch of new friends—friends of Seokmin’s. I’m actually kinda glad he helped you find me earlier. I never would’ve even considered talking to him. _

 

_ That’s...that’s good. _ Wonwoo’s voice sounded hesitant, and Mingyu scrunched his brows in thought.

 

_ Is something wrong?  _ He asked, treading lightly. This whole telepathy thing was still odd to him, but it did amaze him that he could sense the tone of Wonwoo’s voice just by hearing it in his mind.

 

_ Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll do something fun. _

 

Mingyu was feeling giddy at the thought.  _ I can’t wait! Goodnight, Wonwoo. _

 

_ G’night Mingyu, don’t forget about me too soon. _

  
Had Mingyu heard him right? Forget about him? _ What?  _ Mingyu thought back, but he sensed a silence like the metaphorical phone had been hung up, line cut off to Wonwoo. He sighed, not thinking anything else of it, before drifting into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gahh, sorry. This update took quite longer than I anticipated.  
> Anyway, here's to hoping you're enjoying this fic so far.  
> I'm enjoying writing, but I enjoy it MUCH more if I get feedback!  
> Tell me your thoughts and I'll see you next chapter!
> 
> (i'll try not to take so long ugh)


	4. We're gonna rattle this ghost town.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this, Mingyu meets Wonwoo’s eyes. The angel is crying. This is something he doesn’t expect.

It was the weekend. Surely, Mingyu shouldn’t have to wake up early. Surely, the nagging voice that echoed throughout his fluid dreams could be nice and leave him _alone._

“Mingyu. Mingyu Mingyu Mingyu. _Mingyu.”_

He heard it, but tried to ignore it. Part of him was awake and unwilling to do anything about it. After all, he was so warm and comfortable under the soft fleece of his comforter and his head was buried soundly into the pile of pillows resting against the headboard. The world outside his bed was cold and unwelcome; the voice persisted, and along with it came the pressure of something climbing up next to him, shifting the mattress where he lay so undisturbed. There was the presence of a hand on his chest. On...his chest. Hair tickled under his chin and Mingyu realized what was happening.

His eyes opened slowly, one before the other, and there was an angel with his head tucked comfortably on Mingyu’s shoulder, arms curled up and touching him.

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu said, voice rusty with sleep and unable to convey his surprise. “What the hell are you doing?”

He tried to sound confused, but he was so _warm_ and all thought of moving escaped his mind. Then again, there was a boy in his bed. Mingyu had imagined something like this countless times before, but looking at it right in its heavenly face froze him.

“I’m trying to wake you up.”

Wonwoo’s words were muffled against the t-shirt Mingyu was wearing, the one whose fabric his face was currently pressed up against. At this, Mingyu shifted, propping himself on an arm to somewhat sit himself up. Wonwoo grinned. This must be a regular occurrence to him, sneaking into people’s rooms and putting himself in their beds. The cheekiness on his face couldn't have meant anything else.

“Although,” he continued, “I’m not sure climbing into bed with you was the best way to do this. I dunno about you, but it just made me want to sleep, and I don’t even _need_ to sleep. How crazy is that?” The angel rolled over, pulling Mingyu’s covers with him, entangling himself like a burrito. Mingyu could feel himself smiling.

“You’re strange,” he commented. The wood floor underneath his feet was freezing as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed to stand. Stretching, Mingyu yawned as loud as was humanly possible and turned to see Wonwoo with his eyes closed, occupying the entire bed, lanky limbs covered by the sheets.

Mingyu didn’t really want to move him.

“Wonwoo,” he prodded. A face peeked out under the covers with raised eyebrows. “You said we’d do something today. I want to get to know you, too. I feel like—” he interrupted himself with another yawn— “I hardly know anything about _you_ , y’know?”

The angel sat up in Mingyu’s bed. “Of course! I have some things in mind.”

“Then get up,” Mingyu said matter-of-factly. Wonwoo just rolled his eyes and threw the covers from his body. Mingyu opened his bedroom door and went into the tiny bathroom across the hall. Splashing his face with water, he finally began to wake up, blinking the bleariness from his eyes. He hardly heard Wonwoo’s comments from his room, where Mingyu assumed he was looking through his things. It wasn’t like he could do anything to stop him.

“Mingyu, have you really read all these books?” He heard Wonwoo call out to him as he patted his face dry with a towel.

“No,” he answered, returning to his room. Wonwoo was running his hands along the spines of the rows of books lined up on the bookshelves; there was dust, and Mingyu felt a tad self-conscious about not tending to them like he should. Wonwoo’s expression was curious. He pulled a book out from its place.

“ _A Tale of Two Cities_?” He held the book up. “This is some fancy stuff, Mingyu.”

“I, uh, haven’t gotten to that yet,” Mingyu admitted. Wonwoo shook his head, clicking his tongue but shooting him an affectionate smile.

“It’s good.” Wonwoo slid the book back into place.

“Good to know,” Mingyu replied. He looked at the time on the digital clock that sat on his desk; it was still fairly early, but whatever it was that Wonwoo had planned for them, Mingyu wanted to get started with it as soon as possible. Brushing past Wonwoo, Mingyu went to his closet, pulling his t-shirt off as he did so.

“Woah woah,” Wonwoo exclaimed, and Mingyu turned his head back, confused. “At least give me a warning before you start stripping.”

“What,” Mingyu laughed, “you’ve never seen a shirtless guy before?”

“Yes, actually, I have,” Wonwoo expressed. He had his eyes covered with his hands, but the spread of his fingers indicated that he was totally looking anyway. “But still! It’s common decency.”

Mingyu shifted the clothes that hung up in front of him, shaking his head. He had goosebumps running up and down his back, and maybe it was from the sudden exposure, or maybe it was from knowing that Wonwoo was staring. “Common decency is giving someone a warning before you get in bed with them and start cuddling,” he pointed out.

“Okay, well...I don’t really have an excuse. At least I wasn’t naked, though!”

Mingyu said nothing to this, but the image popped up in his mind and suddenly he felt much warmer than he had moments prior. He grabbed a clean shirt off a hanger and pulled it on, willing his face to rid itself of the blush he had brought upon himself. Wonwoo removed his hands from his eyes and smiled, and all Mingyu could do was feel muddled up inside.

“I left my things in the kitchen, so I’ll be out there when you’re done making yourself look good,” Wonwoo said, offering a wave as he stepped out into the hall. Mingyu frowned. “Not that you don’t always look good,” Wonwoo justified, rubbing his neck. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll just be...out here. Yeah.”

Mingyu sighed; how was he supposed to feel? Having someone constantly around you like this was different. It wasn’t bad, though, not as bad as he thought it to be. He’d been so used to having no one but himself and his parents (when they weren’t acting weird around him), and all of a sudden, Wonwoo shows up and knocks his life into balance. He’s never known balance. Always teetering on the verge of too alone and too self-confined, Mingyu found it nice to be around people for once. The same was true for his budding friendship with Seokmin and all of the guys he knew; the other day at the arcade had proved that much. Whatever was going on, Mingyu was welcoming it. The feeling that had been stirring in his chest for a while was now a full-fledged hurricane of God-knows-what.

He looked at himself in the mirror that hung up on his wall. Running his hands through his hair, he opted to pull on a beanie, one that he reserved for exceptionally chilly days. Considering it was the end of December, Mingyu didn’t want his ears to fall off should he be outside for long. As a plus, it covered his bed head, and he was too lazy to try and brush through it anyway.

When he walked into the kitchen, Mingyu made sure he was quiet, as his parents were most likely still asleep. His angel was leaning up against the counter, something in his hands. A picnic basket. Wonwoo was holding it as if it weighed a ton, the largest grin Mingyu had ever seen plastered like a sticker on his face.

“You didn’t steal that, did you?”

“That’s the first thing you say? I’m taking you on a picnic, with food I prepared _myself,_ and you’re questioning my means?”

“Well, yeah,” Mingyu laughed. He walked over and pulled the top up to expose the inside; sandwiches wrapped in plastic, various chips and containers filled with fruit, and lots of candy. Mingyu raised an eyebrow in question, and Wonwoo just frowned.

“What?” he asked, cocking his head and pulling the basket away from under Mingyu’s nose. “Not satisfied?”

“No, I’m quite satisfied. But,” he added, “not convinced you made all this.”

“I didn’t,” Wonwoo admitted, shrugging. “I bought it. It’s the thought that counts!”

Mingyu scoffed playfully, knocking into the angel’s shoulder with his own. “Whatever. Tell me where we’re going.”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Wonwoo said, refusing to answer. Mingyu groaned; it was a typical answer that his parents would give him when he was a child, always pestering them as to where long car rides would end up. The angel, now unable to hide his sly expression, grabbed hold on Mingyu’s arm and led him out the front door of the house, carefully closing it as quietly as he could.

The cold air met them full-on and Mingyu was glad he’d decided to wear the hat after all. Wind blew all around; the two of them started off walking along the sidewalk and Mingyu found it hard to think with the loud gusts stirring up dead leaves along the street. “Wonwoo,” he begged, and the angel side-eyed him. “Tell me where we’re going. Please?”

The ‘please’ must’ve triggered something, because Wonwoo huffed defeatedly. The picnic basket swung in his grasp, occasionally brushing against Mingyu’s leg while he walked. “Fine. We’re going to one of my favorite places. Does that ease your mind?”

“No!” Mingyu exclaimed. This guy. He was ready to give up completely trying to get him to budge. Wonwoo must like pushing his buttons. “That doesn’t tell me anything. Your favorite place could be in the middle of a trash heap, or a park, or at the bottom of a lake. Knowing you, it probably is one of those things.”

“Weren’t you just saying you _wanted_ to get to know me? How would you know what my favorite place would be?”

Mingyu tried not to sound confused. “I don’t...I don’t really know. You just seem weird like that.”

Wonwoo purposefully bumped into him as they walked, kneeing Mingyu slightly. Mingyu didn’t retaliate because the angel seemed to be having too much fun feeling in control over him. “You have no idea, Kim Mingyu.”

The pair remained quiet for the next ten or fifteen minutes, the only noise coming from either of them being their footsteps on the sidewalk or the loud exhales producing cloudy vapor in the freezing air. The streets became busier as they passed into the more crowded part of town; the walkways were wider and lined with convenience stores and paper stands that already were surrounded by busy people on their ways to their jobs. Mingyu found himself unintentionally putting his hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders as to more easily navigate through clusters of people on the street. Car horns honked and tires rolled on the pavement and they passed into the most congested part of the city area, both laughing to themselves at the circumstance.

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo called over the noise, over his shoulder, and Mingyu perked up. “I’m going into this convenience store to buy soft drinks. Wait for me somewhere out here.”

“Okay,” Mingyu said, taking his hands from the angel’s shoulders.

Wonwoo shifted away, holding tightly onto his picnic basket, maneuvering past people to go into a quick mart a little ways away. Mingyu found a lamp pole to lean against, right on the corner of the intersection they had just crossed. Traffic was heavy at this time of morning; taxis, cars, and buses full of commuters whizzed past. Here, where he stood, was a great place to people-watch. Mingyu saw business men in their fancy suits, working women carrying briefcases and somehow managing to fast walk in high heels, and even mothers pushing children in strollers. The occasional paperboy would fly by on a bicycle. He smiled at the sight of a dog-walker, at least ten leash handles in his hands connected to the same amount of various dogs. Mingyu thought about pushing past people to go and pet some, but just then, he caught site of Wonwoo at the counter of the convenience store through the window.

At the same time, one of the dogs must’ve broken away from its leash, because Mingyu’s ear was perked by the sound of shouting and barking as the canine barreled away from its walker, dodging pedestrian legs and heading right for the busy road. Mingyu had to stop it; there were still numerous vehicles coming right towards the intersection. So, he did the natural thing.

The dog ran right past him and into the street, and before Mingyu could think about it, he followed it quickly, reaching out his arms to grab it by the leash that dangled from its collar, the walker stranded behind the crowd of people.

And he was only able to watch as the dog escaped his grasp and leapt and bound across the street to safety on the sidewalk. Mingyu didn’t even realize how close the cars were before he turned his head and heard the screech of tires before his eyes went wide and his heart seemed to stop in his throat. Maybe he heard screaming from the crowds on the sidewalks, but surely no one noticed him about to die. So, he shut his eyes and let it come for him. For the first time, he was afraid.

Instead of the pain he convinced himself he was about to experience head-on, a familiar feeling of warmth exploded in his chest and instantly, the noise around him stopped. Mingyu was terrified to open his eyes and he could feel his own hands shaking as though adrenaline had replaced his blood completely. His curiosity got the better of him, so he squinted open one eye and then the other. There was no busy street corner, no dog walker, and no crowd. He was laying flat on his back atop thick, dead grass. Cold air bit at his cheeks. His beanie had fallen off, but he reached around him and found it lying close to his head. Mingyu sat up, pulled the hat back on, and looked around.

Another body was laying down right beside him, eyelids twitching as if he was asleep and dreaming. He was completely still like a picture. Wonwoo, the picnic basket still in his possession, did not even breathe. Mingyu could only stare, sitting there dumbfounded. Around him, he recognized nothing. There was an endless expanse of grass, but just then, he noticed a playground a little ways away, rusted equipment unbothered.

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu choked out. The angel was motionless. Could angels die? Mingyu was suddenly extremely worried, and his fingers reached out to touch Wonwoo’s face. “Wonwoo?”

The angel’s eyes shot open, and for a split second, they were blank and white, like how they had appeared to Mingyu when he had had him prove he was an angel the first time they’d met. It went away quickly though, and Mingyu could finally breathe again. Wonwoo blinked, sitting up, touching his forehead gingerly.

“You,” Wonwoo breathed, looking right at Mingyu, “are an idiot.” He exhaled, falling forward weakly, and Mingyu let him lean on his shoulder. He looked exhausted; unsure of what he should say, if anything, Mingyu sat dumbfounded and silent. The angel was holding onto him and he was shivering, but it couldn’t have been from the cold. Mingyu remembered him saying that angels didn’t sense temperature as humans did.

“What...how..how did—”

“I saved your life,” Wonwoo interrupted, regaining his composure. He lifted his head from where it had rested on Mingyu’s shoulder. Mingyu met his eyes and saw that they were concerned. “That’s what. You just drained me of all my energy. _All_ of my energy for a dog.” Wonwoo laughed, head shaking in disbelief. The guilt in Mingyu’s stomach was growing. The angel must have sensed this.

“Don’t worry, okay? It was funny. One minute I was paying for two Cokes and the next, I was watching you stand in the street, all deer-in-the-headlights. You...you really are a pure soul, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Mingyu managed to whisper.

“You were willing to get hit by a 2003 Honda Civic in order to catch a dog that could’ve outrun the car anyway. Kim Mingyu, you are an idiot. You were supposed to die. God, my assignment was willing to die for a dog! You can’t make this stuff up!” Wonwoo seemed to be talking to himself now. He was smiling like an idiot for someone who had just saved a life; Mingyu wondered if he was acting like this just to cheer him up. He laughed along with him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Wonwoo turned serious again. “I just...the dog...he was...I didn’t want him to get hit.”

“I know. I saw.”

“How did you do it?”

Wonwoo cocked his head. “Do what? Save your life? I’m your guardian angel, how else do you think I managed to move so fast out of that damn store?”

Mingyu giggled, holding his hands up. “No, I mean, did you teleport or something? How did we get here?”

At this, Wonwoo stood warily, looking quite uneasy on his feet. Mingyu feared his legs might fold from under him at any second, so he stood as well, ready to catch him if he should fall over tired. The picnic basket, which sat undisturbed, was picked up by the angel. Mingyu protested, taking it from him so he wouldn’t have to bear its weight. “Let’s go sit on the swing set,” Wonwoo said, pointing to the abandoned playground. Mingyu nodded and walked beside him.

It was nothing impressive; the swing set squeaked and moaned under the weight of the two boys who sat on the seats of the tattered swings. It was full of rust, Mingyu could tell, and he wondered why Wonwoo had taken them to such a dismal place. Along with the dead grass and the cold winter wind, it made for a dreary atmosphere altogether.

“You’re wondering why I transported you here,” Wonwoo stated, looking straight ahead.

“Transported?”

“Yeah. I expended all my energy teleporting us here so that you’d avoid the whole death thing. That would’ve certainly put a damper on our picnic.”

“So, this is the place we were headed for anyway?”

Wonwoo nodded; when Mingyu looked at him, his face was set and his eyes travelled the expanse of the playground, which wasn’t huge to begin with. It looked nostalgic. Wonwoo seemed like a teenager who uncovers his own baby pictures, thrust into a past he remembered wistfully. It was exactly the expression that crossed his face. Mingyu almost felt like he was disturbing something.

“This is my favorite place. As it happened, you live only a little ways away from it. I would always come here with my girlf—my last assignment.”

Mingyu felt a twinge of jealousy. Wonwoo was always comparing things to his last assignment. His _girlfriend,_ he’d heard the near slip-up. It made Mingyu uncomfortable. If his angel was still hung up on someone that he’d failed, then surely he should feel better by saving Mingyu? Whatever had happened in Wonwoo’s past, though, Mingyu did not want to assume anything.

“Can I ask you something?” said Mingyu, swinging back and forth as best he could on the rusty swingset. Wonwoo held up a hand.

“Only if we start eating.”

He flipped open the top to the picnic basket that sat on the ground in between them. Mingyu helped himself; he grabbed a sandwich and hastily tore the plastic around it, savoring the first bite. He watched as Wonwoo did the same. “I thought angels didn’t need to eat,” Mingyu said with his mouth full of ham and cheese.

Wonwoo shrugged, swallowing before answering. “I can if I want. It makes me feel a little more human.”

“Would you ever _want_ to be human?”

The angel did not answer right away. Mingyu looked at him poking at some strawberries in a container with a plastic fork, moving the fruit around aimlessly. He could almost hear the gears in his mind turning and formulating an answer. Mingyu had been honest; it seemed like Wonwoo wasn’t totally involved in keeping to the rules of being a divine being. From the way he had described his past assignment, Mingyu didn’t exactly doubt that Wonwoo liked feeling like he was from Earth and not an angel destined to move from assignment to assignment as his life went on forever.

“I’m not sure.” His answer came uncharacteristically quiet. Mingyu let him elaborate. “It’s in my nature to want to protect you, and yet I can’t help but imagine what it really feels like to breathe without thinking about it, or to be born into a body like this and not have to steal it from somewhere. Humans are interesting. You live lives in such a short amount of time, but it’s all you ever know. It’s amazing. How do you do it?”

The question was rhetorical, but Mingyu felt like filling the silence with an answer anyway. “We feel things. Love, friendship, stuff like that. I don’t know how well angels can feel it, but we feel it all the time. Some of us don’t realize it’s there, though. We have to find it ourselves.”

“That’s what happened with you,” Wonwoo says, and Mingyu feels harrowed.

“Yeah,” he answers, crumpling the plastic wrap that had contained his sandwich. He tosses the ball between his hands, occupying them. “I’m starting to learn that maybe the world isn’t that bad of a place when you have others.” At this, Mingyu meets Wonwoo’s eyes. The angel is crying. This is something he doesn’t expect.

“Oh my god! Are you okay? Was it something I said?”

“Yeah, no, this?” Wonwoo pointed to his eyes and wiped away his tears. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” He started laughing uncontrollably, nearly choking on the strawberry he had just swallowed. “It just happened. What does it mean?”

“Don’t play stupid,” Mingyu scolded, pointing a finger. “They’re tears. You were crying. Why were you crying?”

“I guess I just...felt something for you.”

Mingyu feels the anxious pressure that had been mounting in his chest suddenly dissolve into warmth, the same warmth he had felt before getting hit with that car earlier. The time had passed quickly, he realized. He had almost forgotten about it just by talking to Wonwoo. The angel’s face turned red but he didn’t seem to mind it or want to try hiding it. He was strange, Mingyu thought, but in a good way. It was a weirdness that made Mingyu feel _normal,_ as odd as that was. It made him want to get familiar with it.

Wonwoo had stopped laughing and took deep breaths through his nose, puffing out visible vapor in the cold air. “Ask me what you want to know, Mingyu. You deserve to know me as I know you.”

Mingyu couldn’t stop himself from grinning. The two of them sat for what felt like hours, shooting questions back and forth. For Mingyu, it was a chance to get to know the angel that had seemed intimidating to begin with. As it turned out, he had favorite books (“ _Curious George_ is a masterpiece!”), favorite movies (“Titanic? _Really,_ Wonwoo?”), and favorite colors (“Rainbow. I can’t pick just one. They’re all pretty!”) and Mingyu loved hearing what he thought about things. At the same time, he seemed so ordinary. He found himself forgetting that Wonwoo was endless, he had lived forever and would live forever, and the notion scared Mingyu as someone who could only live less than a fraction of that time.

When he had expressed this to the angel, Wonwoo had grabbed both of his hands into his own, which caught Mingyu by surprise (but he wasn’t going to complain). He stared at him, like trying to see into Mingyu’s brain through his eyes, and a hint of a smile had ghosted over his face. Some secret that only Wonwoo knew was hovering in the midst of them. He didn’t say anything, but it put Mingyu at ease. He knew it would end up how it was supposed to, whatever Mingyu chose to do in his life, and he was telling him silently that he would always be there. It was true; Wonwoo would never leave him. The warmth settled in Mingyu’s chest for good.

This was what it was like to have a best friend, then.

Wonwoo took Mingyu back home and left him, saying words about an exosphere and regaining the energy he had lost, and Mingyu had latched onto him in a hug. Wonwoo, taken aback, wrapped his arms around him after a few seconds before disappearing completely into thin air.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re here again.”

A head of blonde hair greeted Wonwoo as he popped into the dense plane of the exosphere. Soonyoung was frowning, something unusual indeed, and Wonwoo almost asked him what his problem was until he was being grabbed by the collar of his jacket by the other angel.

“There are others here. You better watch what you say, because they’ve all been watching you and pretty boy on your _date.”_ Soonyoung’s voice came in a rushed, very fierce whisper, and Wonwoo felt weighed down instantly, despite the beginning of his regaining energy by being off of Earth.

“It wasn’t a—”

“Well well well,” a voice came, “look who’s back!”

A group of three angels came into view, each of them walking in the same manner. The tallest—the one who had just interrupted Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s conversation—was smirking like it was the only thing he knew how to do. They all inhabited their human forms. The one that had spoken was taller than the other two, with his auburn hair spiked up in front adding to the height.

“Junhui,” Wonwoo said, recalling the angel’s human name. “Hi.”

Junhui nodded in recognition. One of the other angels opened his mouth to comment as he brushed his long hair behind one ear, putting his other hand on a hip. “Surely you must be tired, Jeon Wonwoo. Spending all that time on Earth can’t be good for one angel.”

“Sorry, Jeonghan,” Wonwoo spoke, concealing the annoyance in his voice. He opted not to address the angel by his actual name because it always left the bitter taste of perfume on his tongue. “I was with my assignment. He—”

“He almost died,” said the third angel, who had been unsuspecting up until now. Jisoo—Wonwoo knew him as a fairly new angel, one that had been crafted later than him but held a special rank because of his terminally ill assignment. He was nice enough, but the tone of voice he used tugged at Wonwoo’s heart in an uncomfortable way. “We know. We saw. Since none of us were particularly busy today, it was quite entertaining to watch.”

“Sorry, bud, gotta go.” Soonyoung mouthed from Wonwoo’s side, and he was suddenly gone. Wonwoo was left alone, faced with three of the nosiest angels in existence. He suppressed a groan; Wonwoo wasn’t one to crumble under confrontation, but he had divulged a lot of personal information to Mingyu today, which was something very frowned upon. He wouldn’t let himself be chastised, though.

Junhui was looking at his fingernails, picking at them, looking more and more accusatory by the second. “He’s my assignment,” Wonwoo said, “I’m _supposed_ to be protecting him.”

“ _Protecting_ him,” Junhui spat out. “Not telling him your life story. Do you know how danger—”

“Dangerous it is,” Wonwoo finished, risking a lot by interrupting the other angel. He saw Junhui’s eyes widen, but the angels beside him did nothing to stop him, instead chuckling to themselves as Wonwoo pushed his limits. He gulped. “I know. You’ve only ever had one assignment, Junhui. Don’t you think I’d know better than you?”

Junhui narrowed his eyes at him. Wonwoo, oddly enough, felt pride in himself for standing up for his own actions. “You’re right,” he said, stepping closer until their faces were uncomfortably close. “But I’ve never fallen in love with an assignment. It happens to you often. Every. Single. Time.”

Wonwoo said nothing. He felt himself sinking into a hole he had willingly dug himself into.

“And how does that work out for you, Wonwoo?” Junhui continued, pulling back. He circled around where Wonwoo stood, eyeing him up and down like a vulture. “How does it feel to be an angel? You’re a fool for thinking of yourself as anything else!” His voice rose in volume. Jisoo and Jeonghan had shrunken back into themselves, looking over unsure as Junhui talked to Wonwoo like a teacher would scold a student for putting tacks on a chair.

“I don’t think of myself as—”

“Human,” Junhui interjected, bringing his voice back to a normal volume. “Don’t lie to yourself,” he said, speaking Wonwoo’s angelic name. In his own ears, it sounded like the rustling of leaves, the crackling of firewood, and the quiet reading of books in libraries. He hadn’t heard it spoken in a while, and Wonwoo was almost distracted until Junhui kept talking. “We all know you’d rather be down there,” he pointed a finger to the Earth, “canoodling with humans. It’s so obvious you can’t help yourself.”

“Love isn’t such a bad thing,” Wonwoo manages to get in. Junhui laughs; it’s something sinister hidden under a melody of bells.

“Love,” he says, stopping right in front of Wonwoo. “Love is not yours. You can’t keep falling in love with people, Wonwoo. It’s so obvious it’s already happening with Mingyu.”

 _“What?”_ Wonwoo exclaimed, disturbing the other two angels who had been whispering to themselves. “You’re insane. I...I don’t _love_ him! I just wanted to get to know him! He’s never even had a _friend.”_

“That’s how it starts,” Junhui shakes his head. “That’s always how it starts with you. Remember last time? Remember how you came to us and complained that you never knew if she’d feel the same? Remember how _disappointed_ you were when she left you? When she chose to kill herself? Can’t you _see,_ Wonwoo? Love does nothing but hurt you. It’s not for you. Leave the hurt to them and stop letting yourself be cast astray.”

His whole world is shattering back into pieces, through the glue he spent years using to put it all back together. Wonwoo is close to losing his composure at the mention of his last assignment, but he holds himself back. Junhui has gone silent. He knows he does it out of wanting to protect him, but the accusations in his words do nothing but spit poison into Wonwoo’s heart.

“Okay,” he mutters. He hangs his head. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll...I’ll try. I’ll do better.”

“You’re a good guardian,” Junhui says, and the other two angels nod their heads. “But the good are always met with the hardest challenges. Keep that in mind. I don’t know how hard it is, but you at least have to try.”

Wonwoo vaguely hears this sentiment over the buzzing in his ears. When he manages to lift his head, he is alone again, standing in the vast exosphere by himself. It is the biggest space and the tiniest confinement, being left to his own thoughts. He feels guilty, but also ashamed because Wonwoo knows he can’t help what he’s felt for his assignments. Was it really that wrong to be attached to someone? Perhaps, if they weren’t human...perhaps if he weren’t divine...things would be different. Obviously, they would be different.

The loudest thought in his mind was that Mingyu needed him, and no one would be able to take that away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh I'm so sorry this took so long.  
> School got kinda busy.....and...well....  
> but I really liked writing this chapter! So it's okay! All the time was worth it.
> 
> Please let me know what you think, those comment options are there for a reason! *wink wink*  
> The next update won't take as long, I PROMISE!
> 
> (also how about Seventeen's comeback amiright)


	5. Kick drum beating in my chest again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a bad habit of yours, falling in love. Is that true?”

Mingyu doesn’t see Wonwoo for a few days.

 

While he was certainly welcome, the angel did tend to distract him from a lot of things. It was his senior year, and Mingyu guessed that his focus should be on his grades and finishing out his time in high school strong. After all, he only had until the middle of February before his graduation, which presented him with a little more than a month and a half of having to sit in classrooms full of people he didn’t like until he was out and free in the world.

 

It was starting to change, though. Instead of hiding away in the library for lunch, Seokmin dragged him along into the cafeteria to sit with him and all of his friends. Whereas the other boy was loud and boisterous and all the things Mingyu wasn’t, he realized that it gave him an opportunity to expand his horizons and open up to people he wouldn’t normally talk to.

 

For example, Lee Jihoon was a hell of a lot less scary and intimidating when he was banging his fists on the table, eyes clenched shut and mouth open in silent laughter all because Minghao had made a penis joke.

 

The group was definitely...something.

 

“So, what do you guys plan on doing once we get the hell out of here?” Seokmin has pondered aloud one day once they had all settled down before diving into their lunches. Mingyu picked at a salad, fork failing to stab into the soggy lettuce, thinking his statement over. Jihoon was the first to respond.

 

“Music,” he said, and Mingyu envied the confidence in his voice. “A buddy of mine—Lee Chan—thinks that he might be getting gigs for dancing soon, so I promised him I’d work on some tracks for what he does. It’s something I enjoy, so,” he trailed off, shoving a spoon piled high with yogurt and granola into his mouth.

 

“That’s a good plan,” Seokmin said, bumping Mingyu’s shoulder as he sat beside him. “What about you, huh? I already hear enough about Seungcheol and Minghao’s plans to start a rap duo—”

 

“Hey!” Both Seungcheol and Minghao exclaimed in protest at the same time, and Mingyu snorted. Of course, he thought. Picturing the two of them, especially Minghao, acting all hardcore was something comical indeed.

 

“I’m not really sure,” Mingyu admitted. The lettuce in his salad was looking less and less appetizing the longer he stared down at his bowl. “I’ve never really thought about it, y’know? I just go where the wind takes me.”

 

“That,” started Seokmin, and Mingyu willingly shut his eyes, expecting criticism, “is a wonderful plan.” He felt the other boy reach an arm behind him, rubbing a spot on his back as a means of comfort. Mingyu smiled, and the three other boys at the table nodded in agreeance.

 

“Yeah,” Jihoon said, “I wish I was that carefree. You gotta keep your mind open, man.”

 

“Jihoon, you sound like a hippie.”

  
“Shut the hell up, Minghao. At least I don’t look like one, what, with the constant hair coloring.”

 

At this, the entire group was laughing. Mingyu found himself enjoying their company more and more. They all acted as one, but Mingyu appreciated how different their personalities were even when they meshed. Seokmin, with his happy-go-lucky attitude and constant smile. Jihoon with his snide remarks and sharp sense of humor. Minghao, even though he was quieter than all of them, and the way he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. And Seungcheol, always making sure they were content. It was so nice to finally have people that let him in, and Mingyu wished it hadn’t taken him so long to make himself included. In actuality, it had been Wonwoo’s doing, since Seokmin had been the one he had run into in the first place. Mingyu made a mental note to thank him plenty the next time he appeared to him.

 

Lunch ended and Mingyu found himself walking to class with Seokmin. The other boy had a habit of knocking into him whenever they walked beside each other; Mingyu didn’t complain because he was sure it wasn’t on purpose.

 

“Mingyu, where are you headed?” Seokmin asked as they passed through the hall.

 

“Literature,” he answered.

 

“That’s _lit._ Get it? Because—”

 

“Yes, I get it,” Mingyu interrupted him before he could explain the joke and make it even more cheesy. Mingyu was laughing for whatever reason despite the pun. The classroom he was heading for came up on their right, and Seokmin pulled him aside to the lockers, slowing to a halt.

 

“Listen,” he began in a pensive tone, and Mingyu gulped. A million thoughts ran through his mind; it was irrational stuff like preparing himself to hear how no one in the friend group actually liked him and this was his way of finding out. But Seokmin looked...nervous. So, Mingyu crossed that from his mind. “I was wondering if you’ll be free tonight?”

 

“Yes,” Mingyu said, wondering why Seokmin would look so scared to ask him such a simple question. “Why? Are we all going out to do something? The arcade?”

 

“No, no, not like that,” Seokmin continued, shaking his head. The shorter boy bit down on the corner of his lip. “The other guys aren’t going. There’s this coffee shop that just opened up in that new part of town, where all the college kids hang out?” Mingyu nodded, acknowledging this. “I was just hoping you’d tag along with me? It’d look kinda weird if I was out all by myself.”

 

“Oh!” Mingyu’s eyes went wide, and Seokmin’s did as well.

 

“But it’s totally cool if you don’t want to!” Seokmin’s voice came out rushed as he put his hands out in defense like Mingyu was going to hit him or something. A moment later, the bell rang, signaling the one-minute warning before class started. Mingyu bared his teeth in a grin that made Seokmin ease up.

 

“That sounds fun! I’d be glad to go. Just text me the details, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Seokmin said, heaving a sigh full of relief. Mingyu watched him walk off down the hall before heading into class, head slightly spinning from what had just happened. It seemed a little odd that it would be just him and Seokmin, not the rest of the group, but Mingyu was getting comfortable with him and surely the other boy would avoid any awkward silences that could ever result in there just being two of them. He managed to focus in class somehow. As soon as the day ended, Mingyu found himself walking home, constantly pulling his phone from his pocket to check if Seokmin had texted. He’d been grateful enough that his parents had given him part of the money to buy a new one when his other one had cracked. Mingyu decided not to turn it in, however, opting to slip it into his desk drawer as some sort of twisted keepsake.

 

Along with the thought of his broken phone came the question of his angel’s whereabouts. It had been nearly a week since Wonwoo had shown up, a week since he had nearly gotten himself killed in traffic, and a week since Wonwoo had brought him to the decrepit park for a picnic. As he walked, Mingyu wondered if he had done something to drive him away. It was either that or he hadn’t come close to death again, close enough to have Wonwoo pop up next to him out of thin air.

 

The least Mingyu could do was stop worrying. Wonwoo wouldn’t want him to worry over something so silly.

 

He got home and went straight to his room, flopping down on his bed, pulling his phone from his pocket. There were three messages—all from Seokmin—when Mingyu checked.

 

 _\- okay, here’s the address of the place_  
_\- actually,_ i’ll _come by your place and we’ll walk together because it isn’t that far_  
_\- is 6:30 okay??? you haven’t changed your mind about hanging out w/ me???_

 

Mingyu typed back a response, smiling to himself. He reassured Seokmin that the time was fine and that yes, he wasn’t messing with him when he agreed to go out with him. In the back of his mind, he felt uneasy, but Mingyu attributed it to the fact that he all of a sudden had a social life. As the most introverted person he knew, Mingyu would have to take it upon himself to ignore whatever feeling of nervousness or discomfort his mind decided to throw his way. It was time to break out of the shell he’d been hiding in. Hitting send, Mingyu tossed his phone to his side and shut his eyes. He could get in a quick nap before having to get himself ready for later.

 

 

* * *

 

Clouds were the prettiest at sunset, Wonwoo thought. He liked the way their edges turned orange and blazed like fire when the sun started going down, when the sky was streaked with various color and the temperature dropped ever so slightly. Getting out of the exosphere had lifted his mood; going into Heaven had been a spur-of-the-moment decision but one that he was thankful for making. Mingyu wouldn’t need him for a while. The thought was sad, but Wonwoo needed to distract himself before he ended up falling into the same pit he had been used to.

 

Heaven, as it turned out, was nothing like how any of his assignments imagined it to be. Wonwoo walked amongst clouds. There were no pearly gates or fountains of youth or anything like that, and human myths often twisted his home into being somewhere filled with life and laughter surrounded by magnificent architectural feats. It wasn’t anything close, but Wonwoo knew it was the most beautiful place that could ever exist. Clouds: that’s all it was. An infinite field of clouds spanned out in front of him. Every now and then, he’d catch sight of another angel, but the place was lacking in terms of visible population.

 

Being an angel, he could certainly sense more of his kind hiding within billows of giant clouds, each with edges seemingly set aflame by the sun making its descent in the sky. He smiled to himself. Regaining his energy was a good thing. No matter how much he wanted to be on Earth, hanging around Mingyu, Wonwoo couldn’t deny that being at home was good for him.

 

“Jeon Wonwoo, you’ve gotta stop popping up out of nowhere.”

 

Soonyoung is suddenly by Wonwoo’s side as he drifts along to nowhere in particular. The other angel doesn’t look too good; in his human form, his eyes are wild, hair unkempt, and his voice sounds strained and lacking any usual pep. It’s an odd way to see one of his best friends. Wonwoo is instantly concerned, but he doesn’t want to pry into what the deal is.

 

“I needed to get some of my energy back,” Wonwoo answers simply. “Earth is exhausting. You know that.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Soonyoung follows up. He looks like he’s thinking hard about whether to keep talking and soon enough, he does. “My assignment kicked the bucket. Eighty-seven years this guy lived. How crazy is that? I thought for sure he’d be gone at any given second, but he just kept on going up until the other day.”

 

“Wow,” said Wonwoo. The thought of an assignment living that long was beyond his realm of imagination. Soonyoung was definitely an oddity having someone so old. Wonwoo, on the other hand, was used to losing things to youth.

 

“It feels weird. I know that time is nothing to angels, but it sure did seem like a long-ass time to me.” Soonyoung shook his head as if he was still in disbelief. “I doubt I’ll ever reach that time again. Nevertheless,” he paused for a moment, looking over at Wonwoo, “I’m on my way to get my next assignment from Hansol. Wanna watch in?”

 

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow. None of his friends had recently been assigned to anyone new, so the whole process was fairly murky to him. He wouldn’t mind watching Soonyoung shake over all the mounting apprehension of not knowing who he’d be assigned to. On top of that, the most intimidating angel Wonwoo knew was Hansol. He didn’t mess around; his sense of humor was something Wonwoo had never tapped into or even tried to relate with. He was scary, to put it simply, but he was also the overseer of Wonwoo’s whole realm of being. Hansol, being his superior, would be scary no matter who he was, what he looked like, or how he talked. Wonwoo found himself smiling at Soonyoung’s offer.

 

“Of course. Let’s go.”

 

They went along, clouds passing, other angels murmurs audible amongst them like passing thoughts, vacant conversations which Wonwoo didn’t care to listen closer to. Soonyoung was going on about how lucky he’d be to be assigned a girl next, which Wonwoo found to be extremely obnoxious and typical of him. Leave it to Soonyoung to put a sexual stigma on an assignment.

 

They came across the courtyard. It was an area about a football field in length; like a divot in the clouds, it gave way to a meeting place for angels and the current place of residence of Hansol. There were no apartment blocks in Heaven because no angel needed shelter, but the thought of them lining the courtyard popped into Wonwoo’s head and he laughed to himself. He followed Soonyoung, close behind him, as they walked on, looking for their supervisor.

 

The sound of Soonyoung’s angelic name in the air knocked them both from their thoughts. Hansol was standing a little ways away, face blank, unreadable to either angel as he observed them. “I take it you’re here for your next assignment?”

 

Hansol inhabited a human form, though Wonwoo knew nothing of his presence on Earth. His hair was neatly parted and suave-looking; black as night, it highlighted the angles of his face all too well. He looked like someone Wonwoo would see on magazine covers, dressing in a closely tailored jacket. Hansol was intimidating, but his appearance alone was enough to make one feel instantly inferior. In a way, Wonwoo envied him, but he enjoyed being approachable more.

 

Soonyoung, looking a bit dumbfounded for a split second, nodded in response to Hansol’s call before pacing over to him, leaving Wonwoo where he stood further away. He was close enough to overhear the details of the exchange, but he suppressed his own excitement at getting to witness Soonyoung’s fate for the next however many years.

 

“I applaud you,” Hansol said. “It isn’t often that a human lives to be as old as yours did.”

 

“Yeah, I guess I just have a knack for the whole protection thing,” Soonyoung replied, rubbing the back of his neck in mocking modesty. Hansol didn’t seem to look amused.

 

“Anyway,” he went on, “it wasn’t your fault your assignment passed on, and I see no reason to halt the bestowing of a new assignment, so I’ll tell you what your plan is.” Hansol, the moment he stopped speaking, shut his eyes in thought. Wonwoo didn’t know what he was doing, but he could make a few inferences. Hansol was probably having to search through assignments with no angels to their name; Soonyoung was wringing his hands back and forth, nervousness dripping from him like water. Hansol’s eyes opened slowly and a slight smirk pulled the corner of his mouth up.

 

“A one-month-old Hindu girl currently living with both parents in the Indian capital city of New Delhi. Her name? Savitari Rama. No physical ailments, disabilities, or hindrances. The same goes for her mental capacity. She’s healthy, but living in the second most populated place in the world with a social stigma that is anti-female in nature. I assume you will be able to handle this?”

 

Soonyoung nodded fiercely.

 

“Good. If that’s it, you can go.”

 

Soonyoung thanked the other angel and turned to walk back to Wonwoo. As the two went to leave, however, Wonwoo’s name floated through the air, beckoning back to where his superior was. Soonyoung raised an eyebrow, but from where Hansol stood, he waved him off, looking only to Wonwoo. The two of them were alone now, Soonyoung having rushed away, and Wonwoo knew exactly what was coming. His superior looked at him with calculating eyes; thoughtful, almost, was the air he was giving off, but Wonwoo knew to be wary. Hansol had a habit of twisting up his words past the point of basic understanding.

 

“I assume you know what I want to talk about,” Hansol said, actually managing a soft smile.

 

Wonwoo nodded. “Yes. I’ll start off by saying I’m not going to make the same mistake again.”

 

“So Detainment was good to you, then?” Hansol asked, and Wonwoo hesitated before affirming this statement. “Well, whatever your case may be, it’s hard to trust you. You say you won’t make the same mistake of falling in love with your assignments every time I ask you this. We go through this conversation every twenty years it seems,” he said with a sigh.

 

Wonwoo fought back the urge to raise his voice. Anger bubbled through the cracks of the front he was putting up, but if he noticed, Hansol didn’t point it out. Almost against his will, Wonwoo noticed his fists clenching and unclenching in order to restrain himself. Hansol was right. Every time they had this talk, it became more and more painful to deny himself the one thing that was bound to happen in the long run.

 

“I know,” he managed to answer, looking away from Hansol’s eyes for a second. “But I’m trying. You have to believe that, even if you don’t believe me when I say I won’t give my heart away to Ming—to my assignment.”

 

“It’s a bad habit of yours, falling in love. Is that true?”

 

Wonwoo’s hands had stopped clenching back and forth. A feeling of dread was settling into his chest, right between the solid structure of his ribcage, right where he couldn’t dig it out. Love. He’d never known it as a bad thing. When the other angels warned him, when they chastised him for indulging in such a simple feeling, that was when it turned bad. His problem was he could never help himself. No one would be able to understand, and he didn’t want to have to explain it to Hansol.

 

“I suppose,” Wonwoo murmured, crossing his arms across his chest. Hansol just paced; this confrontation was making him nervous and the outcome of it could definitely not be good for Wonwoo.

 

Amidst his thoughts, Mingyu came to mind, and all the angel wanted was to escape down to Earth and talk with him, listen to his voice, answer his dumb questions. He was becoming too attached too quickly—yet another “bad habit” he tended towards. Wonwoo couldn’t exactly help it. His soul simply acted like a magnet and the pull was something he couldn’t necessarily ignore.

 

“I’m trusting you,” Hansol said, tearing Wonwoo from his thoughts, “and I believe that you won’t make anymore stupid mistakes. If it had been up to me, with your last assignment, I would’ve had you destroyed. But it’s a good thing I’m not the guy in charge around here,” he continued, smiling. Wonwoo was anything but amused.

 

“I’ll be going now,” he said, and Hansol nodded, disintegrating before Wonwoo could leave himself.

 

The conversation left him feeling numb, but he shook his arms and huffed out a breath before willing himself back on Earth. He had to clear his mind of all this angelic business. He wasn’t one to enjoy confrontation. Mingyu must also be wondering where he was, considering it had been a couple of days since their last contact. Only a few days and Wonwoo was starting to feel lacking without him.

 

Another one of his worst habits: letting himself become obsessed with knowing if Mingyu was okay, if he needed him, if he were going to ever walk off the damn side of a cliff again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Heads, I buy. Tails, you buy.”

 

The coffee shop was buzzing with life and conversations that were hushed and vibrant all at once. Music—it sounded like the stuff on all the ‘Smooth Listening’ playlists on Spotify—was playing throughout the building, squishing the atmosphere down into one of comfort and familiarity. There were tables, wooden and heavy-looking, spread out everywhere, with various types of chairs and beanbags to go along with them. Mingyu sat across from Seokmin at a booth in the corner up against the exposed brick of the wall. Between his fingers, Seokmin held a quarter up, eyeing it like one would admire food before tasting it.

 

Mingyu found himself laughing. “Fine. Flip it,” he urged, leaning forward in his seat, resting his eyes on the coin as Seokmin flicked it into the air with the tip of his thumb. With a clang, it landed on the table, and Mingyu threw up his hands in exasperation. It was on tails, just his luck.

 

“Well,” Seokmin boasted, snatching the coin back into his hands, “looks like you owe me an espresso.”

 

“An _espresso?_ Dude, it’s nighttime. You’ll be up for hours.”

  
“I’m a man of many talents, Mingyu, and that includes resisting the nature of caffeine. Trust me. Plus, I won fair and square,” he finished, shrugging his shoulders but looking sympathetic nonetheless. Mingyu just rolled his eyes and got up from out of the booth to go and order them their coffee.

 

The walk into town hadn’t been bad; to Mingyu, it seemed like Seokmin was trying extra hard to contain his excitability, which threw him off, as Seokmin was normally as loud and jumpy as an electron. When Mingyu had pointed this out, Seokmin attributed it to nerves. Again, Mingyu was baffled as to why anyone could ever feel nervous with him. He wasn’t anything special and he certainly didn’t see himself as intimidating. Perhaps, he wondered, Seokmin felt the same way that Mingyu felt—without their other friends, it was weird, and they’d simply have to get past the weirdness.

 

The coffee shop was not crowded in the slightest but the small space felt slightly cramped even with the amount of people inside. Up by the counter, there was a short line, and Mingyu went to stand at the end, maneuvering around tables and other people. Up on the wall was a chalkboard menu with lists of a variety of things, from a simple iced coffee to double-peppermint-mocha-twist-frappe sorts of things. The smell, though, was overwhelmingly warming. Coffee and warm milk reminded Mingyu of bundling up by fireplaces and reading books. It was cold outside, and the contrast between that and the inside of the shop was very relaxing.

 

“One vanilla latte and an espresso, please,” Mingyu said to the girl at the counter, handing her the bills to pay. He told her the table number and got his receipt before making his way back to Seokmin.

 

“Well, you weren’t kidding when you said this place might be overrun with college kids,” Mingyu commented, sliding back into his seat. This was true; he had noticed on his walk back over that exhausted-looking students sat along the bar with laptops and binders opened up to pages of notes.

 

“Yeah,” Seokmin nodded, tapping his fingers along the wooden table’s edge, “it’s hard to think about how that’ll be us soon, y’know?”

 

“I’d rather _not_ think about it.”

 

A few minutes later, someone came out with their coffee and set the cups on the table in front of them. Mingyu eyed Seokmin, making sure he didn’t down the entire espresso in one go. It was a smaller cup, but nevertheless. They didn’t really need to speak; between sips of coffee, Mingyu found himself being stared at by Seokmin, obviously trying to fluster him.

 

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked, touching his face with his hands. “Is there something on my face?”

 

“No, you just look nice drinking your coffee,” Seokmin said, reaching up to tug Mingyu’s hands away. Mingyu felt tingles in his fingers at the touch but pulled his hands back under the table from Seokmin’s grasp.

 

“You’re an odd one, Kim Mingyu.”

 

Seokmin said it with affection coating his voice, and Mingyu managed a small smile at the apparent compliment. He couldn’t find words to answer, but Seokmin didn’t appear to be expecting a reply. The other boy sat back in his seat and flung an arm across the back of the booth, looking nonchalant as ever. Mingyu listened to the quiet hum of the coffee makers and the irrelevant conversations, realizing that the intermittent sips of his latte may have made him more awake. The bell on the door at the front of the shop tinkled quietly; Seokmin, who was facing the door, looked up, eyeing whoever had just entered.

 

“Hey,” he started, pointing a finger, “that’s your neighbor, isn’t it? Jeon Wonwoo?”

 

“What do you…” Mingyu trailed off, turning to crane his neck and see.

 

His angel looked like one of the college students pouring over their notes, bagged eyes behind glasses that sat atop his nose. He was bundled up against the cold outside in a hoodie, jeans, and boots, but Mingyu noticed his hands were exposed without gloves of any kind. Wonwoo stood near the door, seeming to be looking for something until Mingyu stood from the booth and made himself visible. Wonwoo saw him at once; their eyes met and the angel was now cautiously walking through packed tables to get to him.

 

“Mingyu,” he said to greet him. Mingyu was startled, confused as to why Wonwoo picked now to show up. They both sat down in the seat Mingyu had just occupied alone. Seokmin, who hadn’t said anything throughout the whole exchange, picked at his fingers.

 

“I’d been looking all over for you,” Wonwoo commented, rubbing his hands together. “I tried your house but no one was home, and then I walked through town until I got here,” he finished.

 

“Well, here we are,” Mingyu acknowledged, looking to Seokmin, who smiled.

 

“Yeah,” Seokmin affirmed. “Any particular reason you’d butt in on our date?” His voice didn’t sound angry, but Wonwoo’s eyes went wide as he looked back and forth between his assignment and Seokmin. Seokmin kept a steady glance, not even breaking to laugh as if he had said something funny. Like a light bulb flashing in his mind, Mingyu finally realized what was going on.

 

“Date...yes, our date. Why are you on our date?” Mingyu asked, looking to Wonwoo. His angel was now tapping his fingers on his knee underneath the table. His face was unreadable, but Mingyu noticed the tension in his jaw like he was biting on the inside of his cheek. Wonwoo was acting strangely, and Mingyu looked across the table to Seokmin for help. The other boy just took an unconcerned sip of the coffee in front of him.

 

“I apologize,” Wonwoo remarked at last. “I’ll leave. It was...nothing important. Enjoy your date,” he put in, sliding back out of the booth and getting to his feet. Before Mingyu could even find out why his angel had shown up, Wonwoo was leaving the coffee shop, throwing the door open, making the bell jingle incessantly.

 

“What a weirdo,” Seokmin pronounced. Mingyu shrugged his shoulders. “Why would he be looking for you?”

 

“I’m not sure,” said Mingyu. “He didn’t seem to be frantic or anything, so I guess it must not have been that important.”

 

“And he said he walked through the entire town to find you. What kind of person does that? Could he not have just texted? Maybe called? _Jeesh.”_

 

Mingyu wanted to explain how Wonwoo couldn’t have done that even if he had wanted to; the angel’s lack of cell phone was certainly an inconvenience, but nothing he could help. The image of Wonwoo leaving was stuck in Mingyu’s mind, as was the word ‘date.’ This was a _date._ He had been blind to the fact, being the dense person he was. No wonder Seokmin had seemed so nervous. Mingyu had no problem with it, though. He had made the connection that the other boy must like him sincerely, considering this and that day in the library where he had essentially confessed his harbored feelings. Mingyu couldn’t shake the feeling that Wonwoo had been bothered by this upon seeing them here. It nagged at him for the rest of the night until Seokmin walked him home, leaving him with a kiss on the bottom of his cheek and a bit of unease forming in his stomach.

 

To say he was alarmed when he walked into his room and saw Wonwoo laying on his bed was an understatement. He had to hold himself back from screaming when he flipped on the lights.

 

“Jesus, Wonwoo,” he managed, willing his heart to stop pounding. The angel smiled like the cheeky asshole he was, saying nothing to greet him. “You’ve gotta stop doing this to me.”

 

“Are you not happy to see me?” he asked. Mingyu took off his coat and hung it up on the hook by his door. Wonwoo had his arms crossed behind his head, leaning up against the headboard with his legs stretched out and crossed. “I’m sorry about interrupting your date.”

 

Mingyu felt his cheeks going red. “Why were you there in the first place?”

 

“I figured you were there alone. I got lonely up in Heaven so I decided to come back down and hang out with you, considering my whole life revolves around you, you know. But you and Seokmin looked like you were having a _grand_ old time, so I left.”

 

“You sound jealous,” said Mingyu, throwing his weight down on the bed next to Wonwoo. It was a big enough space to not make him uncomfortable, but their closeness now was something that put fluttering back in Mingyu’s gut. His angel always looked different up close. It was a good kind of intimidating.

  
“Jealous?” Wonwoo scoffed, not meeting Mingyu’s eyes. “I don’t know what jealousy is.”

 

“You’re bluffing.” Mingyu half-heartedly swung out a leg to nudge Wonwoo’s. “You know good and well what jealousy is. It’s like when you see something that makes your hands itch and want to punch something, or when all you want to do is look away but you can’t because you have to imagine yourself in someone else’s situation, you know?”

 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo said, quietly this time. His eyes started straight down at his hands. “I know.”

 

“And you’re saying you weren’t jealous?” Mingyu asked, not breaking his glance to the angel. He looked like he was sulking in his own thoughts, remaining quiet for a reason Mingyu didn’t know. The topic of his and Seokmin’s date seemed to be sore. “I didn’t even realize it was a date.”

 

 _“Seriously?”_ At this, Wonwoo looked back up to meet Mingyu’s eyes. His eyebrows were raised in disbelief. Not knowing if he should laugh, Mingyu bit back a smile at his own stupidity.

 

“Well, what do _you_ think?” He laughed, slapping Wonwoo’s shoulder. “Who would want to go on dates with _me?_ I’m weird! I’ve never even had friends up until this year! Imagine my surprise when Seokmin said it was a date. My heart must’ve stopped beating for a whole second!”

 

“You really are clueless, aren’t you?” Wonwoo was grinning in a way that hid something; Mingyu could see it from a mile away. They stared at each other and Mingyu found himself turning the rhetorical statement over and over in his mind. “Anyone on Earth would be fortunate to go on dates with you. Seokmin must be lucky,” he added with bitterness, making Mingyu frown.

 

“You sound upset with me.”

 

“Not with you, Kim Mingyu. Never with you. I’m more upset at the universe and its tendencies to mock my circumstances every chance it gets, but then again, what else is new?”

 

“You talk about the universe like it hates you,” Mingyu pointed out. Wonwoo leaned his head back again and shut his eyes. Mingyu couldn’t stop himself from staring. He was aware that angels didn’t sleep, but Wonwoo looked so drawn like this, hollow and strained like the world was rubbing sandpaper across the edges of his skin. He looked tired. Mingyu felt the guilt returning.

 

“The universe,” Wonwoo hummed, “has given me second chances. It has given me people like you. Whether it’s out of spite for all the mistakes I’ve made or out of love for me and love of seeing me suffer, I have no clue. But I do know that the universe enjoys making my life difficult.”

 

All the poetics in the world couldn’t have summed it up better, Mingyu pondered. The way his angel spoke was eloquent and perplexing and true. The one thing that stuck in Mingyu’s ears was that Wonwoo somehow felt indebted to the powers that be for putting him in his life. It was oddly coincidental; Wonwoo had been going through a hard time because of his past assignment and Mingyu had been prepared to die. The universe obviously thought it fitting to put two desperate people together.

  
“You saved my life,” Mingyu thought aloud.

 

“You’re just now realizing that?”

 

And then they were both laughing, shaking the bed with the force. Mingyu didn’t care about anything in that moment. He didn’t care about school, or his parents, or his future. He pushed the recollections of his date to the back of his mind. Happiness—if that’s how it could be classified—sparked fires in his chest. Wonwoo’s laugh was like liquid gold, sweet and melodic but emitted like the loudest sounds Mingyu could fathom. It enveloped him in familiarity. They sat there beside each other not saying words but somehow letting the laughter do the talking for them.

 

Wonwoo was thinking about the tooth that made Mingyu’s smile crooked and different. He thought about how his time here would have to end one day but he’d have to do his best to stop it. He thought about how he was the opposite of lucky, being here with a human who made him feel jealousy and happiness and fascination because these were things he was never supposed to experience so strongly but did anyway. He was unlucky in being stuck in the same rut, again and again, constantly finding himself being caught up in a life that he did not deserve to be in love with.

 

Because laughing with Mingyu late at night made him feel the same thing he had felt years and years ago with a girl who had killed herself. It brought him back to memories of being in a park in the middle of nowhere with someone who ended her own life after Wonwoo had told her it was time to stop pretending he could actually be with her like he was mortal.

 

It was his own fault that he had ended up in Detainment. His fault that no one trusted him. His fault that someone he’d loved had died on their own accord.

 

It was Wonwoo’s fault that he was setting himself up to fail again.

 

But Mingyu was laughing, so he would laugh, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm really sorry this took so long.  
> I got caught up in the holidays, so I apologize, but I do think this was my favorite chapter to write so far.  
> I'm setting you all up for the good stuff, believe me.  
> I do hope you've enjoyed so far. I know I'm prolonging most of the good plot but I want to take this slow and develop it well rather than rush out all of the action and not have anywhere to twist and turn.
> 
> Regardless, let me know what you think!  
> Leave me a comment, criticism, praise, whatever!!! Feedback is what pushes me to keep this up!
> 
> See you next time!! (Hopefully it won't be too long).


	6. Talking just to breathe and falling selfishly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo was fanning the flames.

February begins; the weather is cold and metallic, air stinging like the frost that bit on the window panes. All Mingyu wanted to do was sleep.

 

The tiredness was a constant factor pressing on his body. It was like a gnat, nagging at him when all he did was swat it away. It kept crawling up his spine in the middle of any simple action, whether it be taking notes in school or talking with his friends at lunch. He was exhausted for no reason. This, Mingyu knew, was how it always started. First, he would be constantly seeking sleep. Next, he’d want to keep sleeping. And lastly, he’d take steps to make it happen.

 

WebMD called it depression. Mingyu just felt _tired._

 

“Are you feeling sick?”

His mother stood in the doorway of his room, door cracked open, face peeking in to see her son huddled under his covers despite the time, which indicated he would be late to school if he spent another minute in his current state. Mingyu nodded.

 

“Yeah, I think it’s a stomach bug. Is it okay if I stay home?” he said, adding a hint of strain to his voice that would make himself sound a little more convincing. Lying to his mother was never Mingyu’s favorite thing to do, but school would just bog him down even more than he already was.

 

He’d much rather lay in bed.

 

“Of course, sweetheart. Call me if you feel any worse.”

 

With that, she closed the door and Mingyu let out a huff of air. His head was starting to split despite having not even moved since waking up; the sun that came in through his window was too much for him, hurting his half-open eyes, so he felt around to pull on the blinds and shut them. The feeling was back. It came and went when it pleased, and Mingyu had been around the block enough times to know that it crippled him to the point of harm. Staying in bed was his best option. In the back of his mind, the thought of Seokmin showing up to school and not seeing him bothered him but Mingyu felt guilty enough as it was. For what, he didn’t know. The anxiety of having no one miss him at all, though, was much worse than the guilt. Would his group of friends even _notice?_ Mingyu told himself they wouldn’t, he wouldn’t even be the slightest missing link, and they must want him gone anyway.

 

Self-deprecation: another symptom of depression.

 

WebMD could be wrong, Mingyu supposed. After all, lying in bed under his sheets was the most counterintuitive thing he could be doing related to his depression. He wasn’t wallowing around trying to escape it. He wasn’t jumping off cliffs. Thinking of such a thing brought his mind back around the track to Wonwoo. Mingyu wondered if Wonwoo knew how _low_ of a moment their meeting had been for him. Come to think of it, Mingyu didn’t see any sign of the angel even considering his terrible mental state upon meeting him for the first time.

 

Did it even _matter_ to him? Was Mingyu’s mind not at all important to someone who was supposedly his guardian? Mingyu huffed again. Thinking about Wonwoo confused him.

 

Mingyu thought about his real name. Wonwoo wasn’t Wonwoo; he was someone else entirely. Staring up at the ceiling, Mingyu pictured his face. It was a nice face, but one that belonged to someone else. The whole angel thing was not as disconcerting as he had once thought it to be, but the concept of Wonwoo being so...was ‘distant’ the right word? There was definitely distance in the sense that he was friends with an eternal being that would go on to live forever while Mingyu himself was stuck in a much shorter timeframe. In a way, Mingyu felt sad about it. No, ‘sad’ was _not_ the right word. He felt strange. Weird. A little bit fuzzy.

 

“You know, I can sense that you think about me quite often.”

 

The voice he heard made Mingyu look up, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised anymore. His face must’ve looked quite blank to the boy who stood at the foot of his bed, appearing like dust in the sliver of sunshine that still found its way past the blinds on his window. Mingyu looked at Wonwoo, and Wonwoo looked back.

 

“You _know,”_ Mingyu mocked, voice feeble, “it’s a little rude to just barge into someone’s room like you do.” Wonwoo frowned.

 

“‘Barging’ would imply I used force,” he said simply, moving so that he could sit down on the bed. Mingyu felt his weight shift slightly; Wonwoo wasn’t that big to begin with and the dip was quite insignificant. “In a way, you willed me here.”

 

Mingyu didn’t answer. He pulled the sheets up over his face and let out a defeated noise, one that made Wonwoo hum in response to.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Not sure.”

 

“Anything you want to talk about?” Mingyu couldn’t see him, but Wonwoo spoke in a way that suggested worry. There were probably little creases between his brows. His lips were probably turned downward and eyes narrowed, something that Mingyu associated with Wonwoo anyway. His mannerisms were easy to memorize.

 

“No,” Mingyu replied softly. He was cold despite the layers on top of him. The sweatshirt he had on had always been one of the coziest he owned and yet it felt like sandpaper grinding against his skin. Mingyu was having a hard time getting comfortable. Wonwoo must have sensed this, as a second later, he was laying down beside him, face upturned to the ceiling. Mingyu was on his side looking at him like he was insane.

 

“Is this okay?” Wonwoo asked, still not facing him.

 

“You’re in my bed.”

 

“I am in your bed. Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“Because you’re in my bed.”

 

At this, Wonwoo sighed like he was about to start laughing. Mingyu felt increasingly nervous, like he was on the verge of exploding, but the ignition never came. Oddly enough, he was distracted by the angel beside him, laying there, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. Was he not tired of Mingyu yet? He could see no answer that was feasible; either Wonwoo was messing with him, or he genuinely did not mind Mingyu at all.

 

A buzzing noise came from the table beside the bed. Mingyu flung an arm over at grabbed his phone; the screen was lit up with numerous texts from Seokmin. Wonwoo, having not looked in his direction the entire time, was now shifting to lay on his side to see what was going on.

 

“Who’s that?” he asked, tapping the back of Mingyu’s phone has he held it in his hands.

 

“A friend,” Mingyu said. His eyes scanned each message as he unlocked his phone.

 

__\- are you okay????_ _

_\- are you sick??_

_\- do you need soup? tissues?? anything at all?_

_\- school is boring without you i can’t believe you abandoned me here in hell_

 

 

A hint of a smile was forming on Mingyu’s face. Wonwoo was nearly scowling.

 

“You look happy,” he pointed out.

 

Mingyu was hardly listening, only hearing the comment as muffled in his ears as he typed back a message to Seokmin.

 

__-_ i’m okay, seokmin. have fun at school. _

 

“It’s weird,” Mingyu found himself saying as he pressed send. His eyes squinted closed, the headache he had felt earlier was now a full-on thunderstorm raining in on his brain.

 

“What’s weird?” Wonwoo answered.

 

“People caring about me. I didn’t think anyone would ever notice I’m gone even if I _am_ fairly hard to miss. I mean, I’m very tall and you’d think that would make me very obvious. People have never cared, though. But now someone cares. And...it’s just _weird.”_ Mingyu hadn’t meant to start rambling, but talking felt like unscrewing the cap on his feelings to let some pressure out. His chest was lighter by expelling the thoughts.

 

“It’s okay to acknowledge it,” said Wonwoo. He was still on his side; Mingyu opened his eyes and was met with him staring, eyes not wavering. It twisted his stomach uncomfortably, but at least he was feeling things now. “You found friends, and they care about you. A lot of people care about you. Maybe it’s hard to see sometimes, but they do, I promise you,” he continued, eyes finally breaking away. The scowl on Wonwoo’s face was vanishing, turning into something softer.

 

“I never thought I was easy to care about. I’m _not_ easy to care about, and it’s all my fault.” Mingyu pressed his palms to his forehead, rubbing away at the ache still persisting there. “God, what is _wrong_ with me? I’m sorry you got such a bad assignment. I just feel so out of it.”

 

Wonwoo started to shush him, and before Mingyu could stop himself, tears were forming in his eyes and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He didn’t want to crack in front of Wonwoo. The angel probably already thought he was overly emotional as it was. Mingyu felt his hands being gently pulled away from his head, enveloped in Wonwoo’s own. It was strange; they didn’t feel warm or cold but the presence of them tugged at Mingyu’s heart even further, not exactly helping in ending his crying.

 

“Please don’t apologize,” Wonwoo said, running both of his thumbs along the edges of each of Mingyu’s knuckles. “Please. You’re feeling hopeless and you can’t see your worth but _please,”_ he was stressing the word, voice raised, and Mingyu was trying not to gasp for air between each sob. He must look pathetic. Wonwoo brought his voice back down. “You are not a bad assignment. You’re my second chance. You’re what kept me _alive._ If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d say you put all the stars in my sky. Kim Mingyu, you are _not_ a bad person.”

 

Mingyu hadn’t noticed his words getting closer and closer; Wonwoo suddenly had his forehead pressed against Mingyu’s own, hands still held fiercely in between ones that felt like nothing at all. The tears were still falling silently, staining the pillowcase with moisture.

 

“You aren’t a bad person,” Wonwoo repeated, this time closer to a whisper. Mingyu gulped; their closeness was unprecedented and new and confusing and _wow,_ Mingyu had gone and made a fool of himself again.

 

“I don’t...I don’t even know who I am,” Mingyu mumbled. Eyes closed again, he focused on slowing his breathing down to match the angel’s. Their foreheads were still pressed together and Mingyu willed himself not to take note of the warmth of Wonwoo’s breath hitting his cheek.

 

“You’re mine,” Wonwoo put simply, and the uncomfortable pull on Mingyu’s heart had turned into a game of extreme tug-of-war. Wonwoo must’ve felt surprised as well at his own words.

 

“I mean...well, _no,_ that’s exactly what I mean. You’re mine to look out for. Seven billion people on Earth, and I was put with someone like you. Awkward, lonely, slightly cockeyed, self-conscious, and one hell of a crooked smile. If all else fails,” Wonwoo paused, turning on his back again, still holding onto Mingyu’s hands, “you have me.”

 

The pressure in Mingyu’s chest had dissolved almost entirely to give way to emptiness. He felt like a vacuum, hearing Wonwoo’s words and sucking them in to fill himself up and feel good about something for once. His phone was buzzing like crazy; Mingyu ignored it and succumbed to floating around in his own thoughts.

 

“Remember that day in the library?” Mingyu asked, only half-thinking about what he was saying. He tried to take his hands away from Wonwoo’s, but Wonwoo kept ahold of one of them, his grip willing Mingyu not to fight it.

 

“Hmm, yes.”

 

“And that day in the library? The day you met Seokmin?”

 

When Mingyu says Seokmin’s name, Wonwoo blinks. “Yes.”

 

Mingyu opens his eyes and looks straight into Wonwoo’s. The angel brings his head back, surprised, and Mingyu almost misses the pressure on his forehead for a moment. Wonwoo bent his head back in as soon as the disdain crossed Mingyu’s features.

 

“I’m not fully convinced you’re an angel,” Mingyu says. “You told me time and time again that you can’t feel human emotion.”

 

“Because I can’t.”

 

“Well, you’re lying, because on each of these days, you gave yourself away. You told me you didn’t know what being jealous meant. But I think you get jealous quite easily.”

 

Wonwoo broke the stare by clenching his eyes shut. Mingyu was accusing him but at the same time he felt like laughing. The corners of his eyes were crinkled up and it was almost cute.

 

“Please stop,” Wonwoo mumbled, turning his head away from Mingyu’s as he buried his face in a pillow. “You’re making this impossible.”

 

“What’s impossible?” Mingyu asked, genuinely curious. He propped himself up on an arm, letting Wonwoo continue to hold his hand. This was not how he pictured the morning going; the sense of dread he had woken up with was quieter now as Wonwoo posed a good distraction.

 

“You,” Wonwoo groaned, “are impossible. I’m not supposed to feel things. Yet, here I am. _Feeling_ things.”

 

“So, you’re admitting you were jealous? I knew that—”

 

“I wasn’t jealous!” Wonwoo whined into the pillow, making Mingyu smile even more. The grip on his hand was as tight as anything, nearly crushing his fingers, but Mingyu ignored the pain because he was enjoying this, teasing the angel. After all, this is what friends did, right? Mingyu was constantly teased by his new group of friends and as a result, they were now all very close. Wonwoo shouldn’t be any different.

 

“Why do you even mind, though?” Wonwoo continued, looking back up. He was at an angle below Mingyu so that the latter was looking down at him, entire face visible and eyeing him softly. “What’s it matter to you, even if I _were_ jealous—which I’m not—why does it concern you so much?”

 

“Like I said,” answered Mingyu, “I’ve always doubted people cared about me. I just wanted to know if I was reading the signs correctly. But apparently I was wrong.”

 

Wonwoo looked up at him like he was thinking; he bit down on the inside of his cheek and hollowed out the spot under his cheekbone, and Mingyu waited for him to say something. The waiting turned into minutes of Wonwoo’s eyes spanning Mingyu’s face. Mingyu, while having enjoyed possessing the upper hand in the conversation, suddenly felt exposed. He wanted to speak; words were on the tip of his tongue but the way Wonwoo just _stared_ at him made it impossible to form syllables.

 

“You’re looking at me like you want me to tell you what I’m thinking,” Wonwoo observed, cocking his head slightly. His hair tickled the exposed skin on Mingyu’s arm where the oversized sleeve of his sweatshirt pooled in the crook of his elbow. Mingyu blinked back.

 

“What _are_ you thinking?”

 

“I suppose you’ll never know.”

 

“C’mon, you can’t just say that! Tell me!” Mingyu poked at Wonwoo’s shoulder repeatedly until the angel propped himself up as well, now at eye level with Mingyu. Their faces were close again; Mingyu didn’t shy away this time.

 

 _“Do ut des,”_ Wonwoo whispered into his ear, voice low and familiar. Mingyu ignored the goosebumps that popped up along his arms.

 

“Is that French or something?”

 

Wonwoo burst out laughing. “Latin.”

 

“Who the hell speaks _Latin?_ And what did you say to me?”

 

“I _said,”_ Wonwoo went on, the smile on his face evident in his words, “ _‘Do ut des.’_ I give so that you will give in return. A Roman motto of society that could also be applied to the way I’m starting to feel about you. Such a simple principle, and yet, I’ve still failed to fully understand the meaning and its real-life application.”

 

“I’m confused,” Mingyu said after a moment. Wonwoo’s smile faded into something vague and blurry, almost wistful in nature but still there. It made Mingyu want to take his fingers and turn the corners of his mouth back up. He must’ve insulted him.

 

“And maybe it’s for the best that you stay that way.” Wonwoo pulled himself away and sat up, hand finally letting Mingyu’s go. The angel rubbed at the fabric of the pants he wore; they were baggier around the knees, and Mingyu saw him as frail for the first time. With his back towards him, Mingyu couldn’t do anything but look at him and hope to God he hadn’t done something to push him away.

 

“Wonwoo, I—”

 

“Do you feel like getting up and going somewhere?” Wonwoo interrupted, getting to his feet. He ran a hand through the fringe of hair on his forehead, pushing it out of the way to show his eyes.

 

“Where?”

 

“Anywhere. I need some fresh air and I wouldn’t mind your company.”

 

Mingyu hesitated, sitting up in the bed. He held the fabric of the sheets between his fingers. His hair felt like it was sticking out at all angles but he didn’t bother to fix it. Pinching at the area between his brows was the headache he had almost completely disregarded the entire time; it wasn’t as fierce but the pain was still there. Fresh air didn’t sound all that bad, and Wonwoo shouldn’t be out wandering alone.

 

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

  


To put it simply, it was cold as all get out. Wonwoo made the excellent observation as soon as Mingyu shut the door to the house and walked out beside him.

 

He personally could not feel the temperature, but the wind was blowing hard and Mingyu’s eyes started to water very noticeably. The tip of his nose was bright red and he pulled at the collar of the sweatshirt he wore as if to cover up as much of his face as he could. Wonwoo sighed.

 

“You could’ve put on a scarf before we—”

 

“I’m fine. It feels n-nice out here.” The chattering of Mingyu’s teeth made Wonwoo smile. At the same time, he felt the need to keep him warm, but that was something he wasn’t going to readily divulge.

 

They started walking. Mingyu’s neighborhood was small, compact, and quiet. The houses all looked the same and yet there was still so much to look at. Hills rolled up beyond the buildings and trees with barren branches were visible everywhere. Mingyu stuck close to Wonwoo’s side; he looked down and noticed the lack of gloves on his assignment’s hands.

 

“Mingyu, maybe we should go back inside...you might get sick out here.”

 

“I’m _fine,”_ Mingyu repeated sullenly, “I like the cold.”

 

“Is that so? Well,” Wonwoo started, reaching his hand out to grab Mingyu’s from his side, lacing their fingers together. Mingyu’s hand was rigid and Wonwoo almost felt embarrassed at acting so quickly, at giving his intentions away, but the former eased up after a few seconds and held on tighter. “You may like the cold, but I don’t like the thought of you freezing to death.”

 

Mingyu didn’t answer this. Wonwoo, from the corner of his eye, noticed a smile tugging at one corner of his cheek.

  
They walked into town. The entire time, words were seldom spoken, but the grasp they had on each others’ hands was enough for Wonwoo. The angel eyed numerous shops that lined the street. Nothing caught his eye until Mingyu pointed out a tiny place stuffed between a deli and a pet supply store; there was a metal sign hanging above the entrance that read ‘Used Books.’

 

“You like books, right?” Mingyu asked. Wonwoo, nodding profusely, dragged Mingyu inside after him.

 

The interior was much bigger than the outside foretold. There was a fireplace and a couple of chairs placed around it, and the worker at the counter waved in greeting when he spotted the two come in. The smell of paper and chai drifted around, making Wonwoo feel right at home. The most impressive thing about the store was the content. Rows and rows of shelves spanned the place, going farther back than Wonwoo could see, twisting and turning at points like a labyrinth stocked full of all sorts of books.

 

“This place is warm,” Wonwoo noted. The shelves were stuffed with titles he recognized, from Hemingway and Vonnegut to Orwell and Wilde. Dust floated through the air; leather binding and a hint of age made the place smell cozy. There was nothing quite like the smell of old books. Wonwoo had been around long enough to learn how to appreciate the feeling of coarse paper between his fingers as he turned countless pages of stories he enjoyed. Mingyu had wandered a little further down an aisle, back facing him.

 

“Yeah,” Mingyu answered lazily, not bothering to turn his head. He seemed to be scanning the rows of books, hands outstretched as if to brush by the spines and feel the titles embossed on the covers.

 

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

 

Mingyu finally turned to face him, features shadowed in what ambient lighting the bookstore was offering. He looked to be thinking, and in that moment, Wonwoo recalled something that made the inside of his chest feel like pudding, melting like wax off of candles that he’d left lit for too long. They’d gone unnoticed. Fire was usually easy to spot and not hard at all to smell coming, burning through what obstructed its path. This was the feeling of going up in flames. Wonwoo hoped that Mingyu couldn’t see the smoke pouring from his ears.

 

“I’m not sure. Do you have any suggestions? You’re pretty old. Surely you’ve read a lot of books.”

 

The statement masked the burning sensation temporarily; Wonwoo peered at Mingyu with half-lidded eyes, thinking to himself. He turned suddenly, pacing down the aisle, eyes scanning the shelves but feet leading the way as if drawn by a magnet. Mingyu was trailing him, and Wonwoo felt the touch of his fingers as the boy reached out to grab ahold of him. Wonwoo stopped.

 

“Call me a sap, or a downer, or whatever you’d like,” Wonwoo warned, picking out a paperback book with a beaten black cover, “but this is one of my favorites. Would you like to hear some of it?”

 

Wonwoo had his back against the row of books now, facing the taller human in front of him. The color in Mingyu’s face was flush and his cheeks rounded up with the softness of his smile. He stood only a foot in front of Wonwoo; in the back of his mind, the angel hoped no one turned the corner and interrupted them.

 

Fingers shaking, Wonwoo flipped to a page he’d had memorized for decades. It almost seemed he’d been in this same situation before, like a half-remembered case of déjà vu. He licked the top of his lip, taking stuttering breaths, not daring to look Mingyu in the eyes as he started to read.

 

Wonwoo was fanning the flames.

 

“‘How...how we need another soul to cling to,’” he started, tracing his fingernail underneath the line of ink forming letters and words he needed to express, “‘another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.’”

 

Uncertain of the reaction he’d be faced with, Wonwoo opted to close the pages of the book in his hands and hold it out to Mingyu, whose eyes remained still, cast down. He took the book from Wonwoo nevertheless. Part of him wanted to stay like this, pressed closely together between shelves full of emotions and confessions and words that he’d never be able to form perfectly with his own mind. Wonwoo rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

 

“Is this a habit of yours?”

 

Mingyu spoke softly. Wonwoo was suddenly made of ice again, reminded of the moment he was interrogated up in Heaven, reminded of why he shouldn’t be messing around in bookstores with humans who ‘couldn’t understand him.’ And as soon as the feeling had started, it was gone.

 

“Is what a habit of mine?”

 

Mingyu bit down on his lip. It was a quality that Wonwoo associated with nervousness and it was the most endearing thing in the universe, if he were really being honest with himself. “Reading poetry to people who can’t understand it and then saying the words in a way that makes it the clearest thing in the world?”

 

Wonwoo could feel the blush creeping up his neck and onto the bottoms of his cheeks. Vaguely, he remembered Mingyu being surprised at the fact that angels could blush in the first place. It seemed like a far-off memory, so long ago in the contents of his mind.

 

“I only do this with people I really like.”

 

“So you must like me.”

 

The way Mingyu sounded so certain was what threw Wonwoo off. Sure, he’d always liked him. Since Mingyu had been born, Wonwoo had observed him and inadvertently watched him become someone with whom he could relate, someone he enjoyed knowing existed. Mingyu was _likeable._ Up until recently, since he’d prevented him from dying, Wonwoo had only felt the word ‘like’ to be objective; Mingyu was his assignment, and obviously he had to grow to like him. But the lighting in the store was making it very hard to focus on non-personal feelings because the brown of Mingyu’s eyes was almost too deep to get out of. Wonwoo had started digging a familiar hole.

 

In the back of his mind, he told himself not to grab onto Mingyu’s wrists, wrapping his own fingers around each one, pulling gently so that the little distance that existed in front of them was minimized even further. He scolded himself for keeping their eyes locked and he started screaming to his heart to slow _down_ or else regret would wash over him like ocean waves but Wonwoo didn’t want to think about consequences. He tried not to picture his friends looking down on Earth and laughing. He didn’t think of anything, and maybe in doing so, he had formed yet another bad habit.

 

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, hoping the apology was intelligible enough for his assignment to hear.

 

Wonwoo pulled again on his wrists. He shut his eyes and told his heart to _shut up_ when he pressed his lips to Mingyu’s, kissing softly. The contact was welcome; Wonwoo was kissing a boy in a bookstore and it felt like nothing he’d ever known and everything he’d always been waiting for all at once. As soon as he made the move, he pulled himself back and let his hands fall from where they’d been holding onto Mingyu.

 

The latter had his eyes already open when Wonwoo looked at him again; his hand was up to his face, fingertips resting lightly on his lips. He looked shocked but not upset, which eased Wonwoo’s mind only slightly. Every alarm in his brain was sounding, a myriad of sirens and bells and things that brought his attention to the wrongness of everything he’d just done.

 

Mingyu finally spoke. “That felt weird.”

 

“Weird?”

 

“Like carbonation,” Mingyu clarified. Wonwoo, still confused, prompted him to explain further with just a glance. “Bubbles, Wonwoo. You feel like bubbles and Pop Rocks and really strong mint gum and Coca-Cola.”

 

“I’m an angel,” Wonwoo said. “And you’re mortal. And I kissed you. And...and that must be why.”

 

“It wasn’t bad,” admitted Mingyu. Wonwoo snorted with laughter, shaking his head at Mingyu’s forwardness. The angel turned and started walking down the aisle and toward the storefront, not phased when Mingyu kept listing off things related to the nature of Wonwoo’s kissing; apparently—he had nearly forgotten in the long time it had been since his past human contact—angels did things to mortals that weren’t really explainable. It felt like electric shocks to some and like bubbles to others such as Mingyu. The whole concept was incredibly engaging to Wonwoo. He was like lightning. He was like—as Mingyu put it—Coca-Cola. He almost couldn’t contain himself from swooning.

 

They emerged back outside to find that it was snowing.

 

Mingyu, with no gloves or scarf or anything other than a hoodie, was shivering, but the smile on his face made him look even more like a child; his eyes were wide and Wonwoo couldn’t help but smile, too. It was strange how Mingyu could go from low to high in an instant. Then again, Wonwoo didn’t mind him either way. Right now, as Mingyu laughed to himself and stuck out his tongue to catch flurries of snowflakes, Wonwoo was glad that he was caught in a high again.

 

“Don’t you just love the snow?” Mingyu asked as the two began walking down the street back the way they had come from. Wonwoo shrugged.

 

“It’s alright.”

 

“Alright? That’s _it?”_

 

“Yes,” Wonwoo repeated. “It’s alright.”

 

Mingyu grumbled something about angels not understanding weather before something like sudden realization struck him, the apparent epiphany evident as Wonwoo side-eyed him.

 

“You look like you’re plotting something,” commented the angel. Mingyu was grinning like a devil, canines poking out. Wonwoo could stare at them for hours. He shook himself back into reality. “I don’t like that look on your face, Kim Mingyu.”

 

“Oh, just wait, Jeon Wonwoo.” At the mention of his human name, warmth blossomed in his chest. Wonwoo had no idea why it sounded so good to his ears, considering it was not even his own name to begin with. If only Jeon Wonwoo were still around to hear how pleasant it was coming from Mingyu.

 

Before Wonwoo could react, Mingyu had taken ahold of his hand and had broken out into a jog, forcing the angel to keep up. The street they were on wasn’t extremely crowded, but Wonwoo found himself being dragged past numerous people whom he had to shout apologies to for bumping into. Mingyu did not slow his pace down. Faces blurred past and all Wonwoo could do was keep his legs moving, eyes trained on the back of his assignment’s head, watching his hair bounce up and down with every move he made. Physically, he was losing stamina. Being on Earth wore an angel like him down to threads; Wonwoo was mustering up all the strength he could find, but running wasn’t helping. He could deal with it at least for the time being.

 

Snow was falling heavier now. As Mingyu led him through the town, buildings became sparse and Wonwoo realized they had been going up the steady incline towards the tops of the hills that hid the populated valley below. The street was blanketed in frost. Snow crunched under their shoes as Mingyu slowed to a walk, hand still wrapped onto Wonwoo’s. He didn’t bother pulling it away.

 

“How...how are you...not out of breath?” Wonwoo heaved, nearly gasping after all the exercise. Mingyu still stood tall and looked to be unbothered by the jog he had just taken them on. His face was full of color, whether it be from the run or from the temperature biting at his cheeks. Meanwhile, Wonwoo was slightly hunched over, taking heavy breaths.

 

“We’re almost there,” Mingyu shot back, looking quickly over his shoulder, “but you’re okay right? Are you tired at all? Do you need to—”

 

“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but one that would make Mingyu happy and get him to stop worrying. Wonwoo licked his lips, noting how chapped they’d become from the cold. “Just keep going. You haven’t even told me where you’re taking me. You could be _kidnapping_ me for all I know.”

 

“Well, I’m not,” Mingyu said, laughing. “If that’s any comfort to you.”

 

They walked in silence apart from their steps hitting the ground. Snow covered the bare trees and twinkled where it blanketed the grass. Wonwoo took in the atmosphere, gazing down past the hills and into the town; snowflakes occasionally got caught on the tops of his eyelashes but melted away quickly. The pressure of Mingyu’s hand in his own was comforting to say the least. The two didn’t have to be speaking, but somehow, Wonwoo felt like he was enveloped in everything he would’ve been able to say out loud.

 

It was not love. It was a seed planted in the half-frozen grass that Wonwoo could picture himself going great lengths to see grow. It wasn’t going to be easy to kill off.

 

“In case you were wondering, we’re here.”

 

Mingyu’s voice knocked Wonwoo back into reality. His surroundings hadn’t changed much, and at first he was confused. Apart from the heavy snow falling and the identical patches of trees surrounding him, he couldn’t distinguish anything special. He could tell they might’ve reached the top of a hill because the air was crisper and less dense.

 

“Where are we?”

 

“It’s a park,” said Mingyu, letting go of Wonwoo’s hand slowly, allowing himself to be drawn into his own person once again. “The last time I walked through here was the day I met you.”

 

 _Oh._ Wonwoo could see it now. There were a few benches lining a snow-covered walkway, stone nearly crumbling under his feet. The grass sloped down and up with the rolling of the hill, and Wonwoo swore that he could see the outline of a cliff face a few meters away even amidst the snowflakes. The only thought in his head was something immense, something he couldn’t quite label.

 

Mingyu was still. His head turned slowly to take everything in. If Wonwoo were to describe him, standing there in jeans and an old hoodie, hands stuffed deep into his pockets to keep them from freezing, eyes scanning the sky and snowflakes landing delicately in his hair, he would only be able to muster up a few words.

 

Important. Oblivious. _Golden._

 

“I thought that this place was nice,” he continued, staring up at the sky. “I rode my bike all the way up here that day with the intention of clearing my head. Then I just started thinking too hard and the next thing I know…”

 

“...you were lying at the bottom of a ravine,” Wonwoo finished as Mingyu trailed off.

 

“With an angel hovering over my head. Go figure.”

 

Wonwoo fought the urge to tackle him right there, to grab him by the shoulders and pull him close and assure him that he’d always be hovering over him, that he’d never have to feel that hopeless again. Instead, the angel took careful steps to stand beside the taller boy, taking his hand and pulling him to sit down on the nearest bench after he had brushed the snow from its surface. Mingyu was smiling, but Wonwoo knew it wasn’t out of any particular happiness. If anything, it was lost. It was trying to find meaning.

 

“I think...I think I’m getting better,” Mingyu choked out, not looking Wonwoo in the eye. His throat closed up and Wonwoo noticed the glassiness of Mingyu’s eyes. A lump formed in his stomach; seeing Mingyu cry made him feel even more like a protector.

 

“I have friends, and I have you, and I just want to graduate already and move on with my life, and I think the sad feeling doesn’t come for me as often as it used to, and I just...I feel safe. I feel like people care about me.”

 

“Because they do,” Wonwoo urged, grabbing both of Mingyu’s hands in his own. He gave him a small smile, to which Mingyu responded by holding back a sob and crinkling his own eyes. “It’s okay if the sadness is still there. But at least you can acknowledge that you don’t have to deal with it alone.”

 

“I’m sorry for—”

 

“Shh,” interrupted Wonwoo. He tugged playfully at Mingyu’s arms. “What did I tell you about apologizing? Obviously, you don’t burden me. I _want_ to help you.”

 

“Really?” With earnest eyes, Mingyu bent his head forward slightly, tears subsiding into a shaky smile that Wonwoo couldn’t help but stare at.

 

“Really.”

 

“ _Really_ really?”

 

With each word, Mingyu put himself closer to Wonwoo. His mind was whirring and his heart was beating at the speed of light; the angel pushed all thoughts of exhaustion aside because his assignment was looking at him like he had figured out exactly how Wonwoo was thinking about him. Mingyu was still smiling like an idiot.

 

“Mingyu, maybe we should—”

 

“Is it okay if I kiss you?”

 

Mingyu’s breath warmed the side of Wonwoo’s cheek, and the angel felt like he’d been dropped from the top of a building with no warning. Mingyu did not wait for an answer. The kiss they’d shared earlier had been nice, but Wonwoo was now the one on the receiving end. The cold of Mingyu’s lips pressed against his own, timid and soft and innocent, and Wonwoo kissed back, eyelids fluttering closed after the moment of surprise. It lasted longer this time, both of them shifting so that their bodies could be closer. Wonwoo was trying hard not to smile, but the tug of his mouth made Mingyu smile as well, and soon enough, they each pulled back and let out their laughter. Mingyu’s eyes were shining; Wonwoo couldn’t stop staring.

 

He thought about the fact that Mingyu felt his kisses as bubbles. Wonwoo felt Mingyu like smoke from a flame, slight and barely there but so _obviously_ there if one were to focus on him. A sudden wave of fatigue swept over him amidst his thinking of the boy sitting beside him, the rapture completely gone within seconds; he let himself crumple against Mingyu’s shoulder, much to his alarm.

 

“Wonwoo? What’s wrong?”

 

“Tired,” he mumbled. His head felt like it weighed a ton and the ache in his body was sapping the strength right from him. He had spent too much time on Earth. He needed to leave. But leaving Mingyu right now meant leaving a chance to make himself happy. As much as he hated the selfish thought, Wonwoo couldn’t ignore it. Mingyu had kissed him. Wonwoo had kissed back. The cycle of letting himself fall into a pit had just furthered and there was nothing that could reverse it now.

 

“Do you need anything? What should I do?” Mingyu’s voice was rising in pitch, words frantically pouring out. “Wonwoo, look at me!”

 

Wonwoo managed to lift his head, opening his eyes slightly, but the brightness of the world and the white of the snow caused pangs of a headache to stab him right between the eyes.

 

“I...I lost too much energy,” he admitted, huffing the words out. Mingyu held him gently, gaze unwavering. “I have to leave for...for the moment.”

 

“Okay, okay. Then leave! Don’t hurt yourself here,” Mingyu said, softer this time.

 

Wonwoo managed a smile. “If anything, I was only helping myself by being here.”

 

“You should go.”

 

“Promise me one thing, Kim Mingyu.” Wonwoo slowly got to his feet and Mingyu helped him, holding tightly onto his shoulders before sliding an arm around his waist, hand gripping his side, letting him know he was there.

 

“What?” Mingyu asked carefully. Wonwoo tried not to look him in the eye. The snow whirled around them and Wonwoo couldn’t think of what he originally meant to say because the light that struck Mingyu’s eyes made them melt like chocolate, deep and rich and impossible to get out of. There he went again, digging his hole deeper. Wonwoo sighed and said the first thing that popped into his exhausted mind.

 

“Promise that you’ll try not to be so easy to fall in love with. Like, you’re killing me here.”

  
Wonwoo felt himself being sucked up out of Earth, dissipating as he willed himself to return to Heaven, the thought of gaining some energy back very appetizing. He could picture the look on Mingyu’s face as he faded out of his world; it was something soft and shocked at the same time, and Wonwoo could feel himself falling, and falling, and falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like we have some development, eh?
> 
> So there you have it. Here's where things get interesting.
> 
> I tried to get this update done sooner than last time because I hate to keep people waiting. Sorry the update schedule amy be a tad bit sporadic, but I'm trying my best!!  
> Let me know what you think! I appreciate comments and feedback because how else am I supposed to know what you like, don't like, or in between? Drop me a line, here.
> 
> But yeah! See you next time!


	7. Until the spring comes again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo was helping, but loving him? He couldn’t pick apart that feeling from the rest.

Mingyu was graduating.

 

The odds, meaning all the papers he bullshitted, all the times he wrote answers on the palm of his hand, all the dozing off in class and the scoldings he received from his teachers, had somehow worked out to be in his favor. Mingyu thought it was a miracle—one that he was welcoming with open arms.

 

The school uniform? He’d be glad to get rid of it as soon as he was handed the flimsy sheet of paper certifying the end of his years in high school. The thing itched and was getting to be a bit too small for the rate his lankiness was growing; Mingyu struggled to tug the sleeves of the jacket down to rest at his wrists where they were supposed to.

 

His ceremony was taking place in the run-down gym of the school in a little less than an hour; as he stood looking in the mirror in his bedroom, Mingyu continuously ran his fingers through the mess of hair on his head, trying in some way to straighten it out and make himself look decent enough. Outside his door, he heard his parents bustling back and forth, getting dressed in their nicest clothes, primping to make themselves look more like all the other sets of parents that would be in attendance. Flashiness was key when meeting at a high school ceremony, Mingyu supposed.

 

Mingyu let his arms fall limp at his sides. He stared at his image in the mirror. This was it. One last day and he’d be free and out in the world. 

 

The thought was terrifying.

 

Mingyu had been accepted to a local university—certainly not one of the top schools in the nation, but a good school nevertheless—but the notion of picking an area of study was something he refused to acknowledge. There were too many options for him. Too many bad decisions he could regret making. So, he put off choosing. He still had time.

 

His parents were calling his name now. Mingyu heaved a sigh, shoulders drooping, and tried to lighten up. There was still all the time in the world.

 

Upon arriving at the high school campus, Mingyu left his parents to walk together and found his way to the gym building alone. It was small and compact, cracks and dust evident on the glass of the windows that lined its exterior. The inside wasn’t much better; considering it was mid-February, there should’ve been heat, but Mingyu found it to be equally freezing once entering. He fought the urge to let his teeth chatter and instead spent time scoping out his class. There were seats already filling with other students in identical uniforms, although Mingyu had gotten there well before call time.

 

Voices bounced around in the echoey space of the gym; Mingyu heard one specific voice calling out his name.

 

“Mingyu! There you are!”

 

Seokmin appeared, striding up with the rest of his friends in tow. Whereas Mingyu’s uniform was small on him, Seokmin’s looked roomy, his necktie loose and casual and the hems of his pant legs creeping down past the tops of his dress shoes.

 

“Here I am,” Mingyu said, smiling. Jihoon, Seungcheol, and Minghao caught up and the group congregated into their usual blob.

 

“Dude,” Jihoon said, eyes glinting humorously, “you look like you’re busting at the seams.”

 

Mingyu felt his cheeks flush. “I haven’t replaced this jacket since last year.”

 

“You grow _ that  _ much in a year?” Jihoon looked offended, and Mingyu almost apologized, but the other boy just shook his head in admiration. “I wish I grew that much. I’ll be stuck under all of you for as long as I live.”

 

Seungcheol ruffled the top of Jihoon’s head, messing up his hair slightly. “And we’ll love you just the same...even if you are _ literally _ three feet tall.”

 

“You asshole,” Jihoon growled, swatting Seungcheol’s arms away jokingly. Mingyu couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“So, how does it feel?” Minghao, who had remained silent up until now, spoke up; the other boys just turned their eyes away from each other, ashamed to admit the excitement they must’ve been experiencing. Mingyu saw the smile fade from Seokmin’s face—definitely unusual. 

 

“Weird,” Mingyu said. “I feel like I should still be in elementary school drinking juice boxes and avoiding naptime.”

 

“Naptime,” Seungcheol and Jihoon sighed simultaneously, looking at each other wistfully. Jihoon went on. “I’d give anything just to get some rest now.”

 

“Agreed,” said Seokmin. Mingyu eyed him, and Seokmin returned the look, turning the corners of his mouth up, plastering the smile back onto his face. “But hey! Now we’re done! It’s over!” Mingyu could recognize the faux-happiness coating his words, making it seem like he was the most cheerful person in the world. If it weren’t for the relatability he felt, Mingyu would assume that he was.

 

“Mingyu,” Seokmin interrupted himself. “The new guy? Your neighbor?”

 

“What about him?”

 

“I haven’t seen him around. He said he was a senior, so I assumed he’d be graduating today.”

 

“Oh.” Mingyu was temporarily stunned; he hadn’t seen or heard from his angel since they had been in the park a little over a week ago. Mingyu had failed to recall the tiny details of Wonwoo’s acting-human facade, so Seokmin’s observation was coming as a surprise for him. If it was evident on his face, Seokmin said nothing about it.

 

“Right,” Mingyu recovered. “He, uh, I think he said something about not having enough requirements? His credits didn’t transfer from his previous school...so I assume he’ll be a senior again next year.”

 

Seokmin’s eyes narrowed; Mingyu hadn’t fully convinced him, he could tell, but Seokmin left it at that and said nothing more about Wonwoo’s absence.

 

Just then, teachers started raising their voices at everyone not in their seats. The group moaned and groaned, separating to head to their respective places, as the ceremony would begin soon and everyone had to be in alphabetical order. Mingyu was seated in between two girls he did not know, and the effort to make small talk while the final preparations were being handled was futile. Mingyu sat and stared at his hands. Parents began flooding in minutes before the ceremony began, causing the tiny gym to be only the slightest bit warmer with the number of bodies inside.

 

Further down the row of chairs, Mingyu noticed someone moving their arm, and he turned his head to see Seokmin gesturing towards him, waving and grinning as wide as he could. Mingyu only managed a small smile in return. Suddenly, the thought of how hard Seokmin was trying did nothing but defer Mingyu’s attention.

 

Names were called. The principal spoke. Clubs were introduced. Parents clapped. Mingyu wanted to go up and grab his diploma already but he had to wait for his own name to be called, which seemed to take forever. He had never been aware of how many people attended the same school. After about fifteen minutes of names and pleasantries, Mingyu finally got to stand and walk the path to the front, shaking hands of school officials with whom he had never come to know the names of. His diploma was poorly scrolled but he took it without hesitation, striding happily back to his seat. He had done it. He was  _ done. _

 

The gym emptied and Mingyu found himself being pushed outside along with other students and the crowd of parents. He searched above the tops of heads for his own family, hardly able to recognize anyone amidst the sea of gray school uniforms.

 

Mingyu felt a tug at his jacket sleeve, and he turned, assuming it was one of his friends catching up with him or his parents having found him.

 

He looked, and there was an angel.

 

Before Mingyu could properly react to Wonwoo standing there, he was being pulled away and back towards the side of the gym; Wonwoo held tightly onto the sleeve of the uniform jacket and Mingyu felt the uncomfortable fabric stretching to accommodate him.

 

Wonwoo stopped walking, let Mingyu go, and turned to face him.

 

“Hey,” he greeted breathlessly. Mingyu stared, unable to figure out the look on his angel’s face. His eyes were shining, upturned and attentive, while the rest of him seemed small.

 

“When did you get here?” Mingyu asked, furrowing his brows. He pulled off the uniform jacket, thankful for his freedom, and smoothed the white of his dress shirt. “Are you okay? You haven’t been around in weeks, I was—”

 

“Worried,” Wonwoo interjected, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry about that. But I came back to see this.” He motioned to the huge crowd with his arms. “Congratulations. It isn’t often I see my assignments graduate.”

 

“It isn’t?”

 

“Well, no.” Wonwoo looked around thoughtfully. “Anyway, you looked really happy about getting this,” he commented, snatching the diploma from Mingyu’s hand. He unscrolled it, reading over the words. Clicking his tongue, he looked back at Mingyu with a smirk. “Kim Mingyu, your GPA is definitely not as impressive as I had thought…”

 

“Hey!” Mingyu laughed, grabbing the diploma back. The two of them fell into some sort of awkward pause until Mingyu heard someone call his name from behind him. He looked to see Seokmin approaching; he had also removed the uniform jacket and Mingyu tried not to take note of how many buttons were undone on his shirt.

 

“There you are,” Seokmin said, walking up to stand beside Mingyu. Out of instinct, Mingyu shuffled his feet to stand closer to Wonwoo, who looked just as surprised as Seokmin at this. “Wonwoo? What are you doing here?”

 

“I thought it was common courtesy to come to your friends’ graduations, even if I myself am too far behind to participate,” he replied, and Mingyu nearly laughed at his expression. The angel seemed to puff out his chest at everything Seokmin said and Mingyu hadn’t the slightest idea why he tried so hard to seem intimidating.

 

Seokmin shrugged. “I guess. Mingyu,” he continued, “have you found your parents yet? I think we should get a picture together!”

 

Mingyu gulped, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. He _ hadn’t _ found his parents yet. His eyes scanned the school courtyard; it didn’t take long to spot the taller figure of his father standing alongside his mousy mother. Mingyu offered no warning before jogging off to greet them. Seokmin followed, talking incoherently about something pertaining to Jihoon and Minghao.

 

“Mom, Dad!”

 

His parents pulled him into a hug, and for the first time in a while, Mingyu was feeling warm. The winter air was no match for the embrace of his parents, who spoke of nothing but praise to him. It was nice. Mingyu wasn’t used to them showing such display of affection for him. Perhaps they might finally accept him after all this time, although Mingyu wouldn’t let such a vast hope overtake the simple sense of gratitude he felt in the moment.

 

His mother had someone take their picture, just the three of them huddled together and then with Seokmin, who threw a casual arm around the back of Mingyu’s shoulders, just tight enough to pull him closer. Mingyu felt even more proud of himself for not shying away from all of the embraces.

 

Wonwoo stood off to the side; Mingyu assumed that he was making himself invisible to everyone else, as Seokmin questioned where he had gone off to. Mingyu was the only one able to send him sympathetic glances, the only one able to see how... _ sad _ he looked standing alone.

 

His angel was surely a part of his family now. Wonwoo was starting to mean even more to him, but Mingyu couldn’t readily say it. It pained him just as much to go on ignoring him in plain sight. After all, without Wonwoo, Mingyu would be nothing. He wouldn’t even have a shitty diploma to begin with.

 

Hours passed once the ceremony had ended. In the groupchat with all his friends, Mingyu made plans for the night, agreeing to head over to some giant party that Jihoon had planned. Mingyu didn’t necessarily know how excitable Jihoon was when surrounded by a hundred other people and alcohol, so the experience was something he was going to take great amusement in taking part in.

 

Wonwoo, throughout the rest of the day, sat on the edge of Mingyu’s bed while Mingyu conversed with friends. He said nothing for hours. Mingyu almost thought something was wrong, but upon asking, Wonwoo looked at him with fond eyes and promised it was nothing. The feeling of worry retreated back into Mingyu’s brain and was replaced with the stirring of electricity in his stomach.

 

“You should come with me tonight,” Mingyu said, not phrasing it as a question. Wonwoo shrugged.

 

“I don’t think I’m that useful at parties,” he replied, “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I  _ certainly _ don’t dance.”

 

“You’d dance with me, wouldn’t you?”

 

“What?”

 

Mingyu shook his head, not bothering to go on. “Just come with. If anything, I’ll enjoy myself more knowing that you’ll be there if I pass out and fall down the stairs or something.”

 

“Wow,” Wonwoo scoffed, “I guess I have no choice then.”

 

Mingyu smiled widely, appreciating the angel’s sarcasm for once, before shooting a text back to the chat that said he’d be bringing Wonwoo as a plus-one. The emoji that Seokmin replied with did not seem too pleased at hearing this.

 

* * *

 

  
  


Lee Jihoon’s parties were apparently notorious for being, well,  _ notorious.  _ Mingyu had no idea that his friend pulled stuff like this off, but graduation called for a celebration, and Jihoon had planned for one hell of a night.

 

The music was already audible from way down the street; Mingyu felt excited apprehension building in his stomach, making his fingers twitch. Seokmin was rambling on about all the people that were supposed to be in attendance. Wonwoo walked silently by Mingyu’s side, expression unreadable and set like stone. Mingyu hoped it wasn’t bothering him to tag along, but he would feel guilty by leaving him out of it. Wonwoo was important to him just as much as all his other friends were.

 

Crowds of other people hung around outside Jihoon’s home; Mingyu thought it was nice and ordinary—there was no threat of Jihoon’s parents showing up, according to him, which eased Mingyu’s mind. He felt Wonwoo bump their hands together as they walked up the front steps and into the house, where the music rumbled the ground and nearly melted all the conversations inside together.

 

Mingyu followed Seokmin on instinct. Classmates Mingyu had passed in the hallways were now downing cups full of what he assumed were all types of alcohol; the air was semi-polluted with a sort of sweet smoke. Jihoon, their host, was nowhere to be seen.

 

Almost immediately, Mingyu was handed a cup of his own. The liquid inside was tinted yellow and smelled bitter but he sipped anyway, tasting the nearly-vile alcohol slide all the way down his throat. He turned, looking for Seokmin, but the boy who had been there a second earlier had moved off elsewhere. Mingyu also noticed Wonwoo had gone off, and he spotted what looked like the back of his angel’s head moving past people to one of the less populated corners of the living room.

 

“Kim Mingyu, right?”

 

Mingyu turned to the source of the voice; a girl he knew from his history class leaned against the counter, neckline low, eyelashes batting up at him. He gulped, managing a smile and a brief nod.

 

“What are  _ you _ doing at a party like this?” she asked, sipping generously from the bottle in her hand. “Do you know Jihoon?”

 

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re friends. I figured I’d try to have a normal high school experience on my last day as a student, so here I am.” For the life of him, Mingyu could not recall the girl’s name. He guessed it would be rude to ask now.

 

“That’s good. Here,” She glanced to the half-filled cup in his hand before taking the contents of her bottle and dumping it into what remained. “Drink up. You’ll have more fun that way.”

 

So, Mingyu drank. And then, he drank some more. Somehow, the burn in the back of his throat was starting to feel normal by the time he made his way out of the kitchen and into the living room, where a huddle of people watched as two girls sang terrible karaoke, swaying their hips to the beat of the song.

 

Vision hazy, Mingyu bumped into someone, and that someone turned out to be Seungcheol. He had lost track of him since they had come in together, and he didn’t look too great. His eyes were bloodshot, Mingyu could tell even in his clouded state, and the goofy smile playing on his lips widened at the recognition of a friend.

 

“Hey, Mingyuuu,” he drew out, throwing an arm over Mingyu’s shoulder. Mingyu could only manage a dumb laugh. “Havin’ fun?”

 

“Yeah,” he said back, and just then, Seungcheol nearly tripped over his own feet. Mingyu held him up as best as he could, although he was more focused on the song playing all around him. The lyrics were ones he knew but could not identify at the moment. Seungcheol lurched to the side and fell onto the floor in a huddle, laughing hysterically to himself.

 

Mingyu left him there. He hoped he’d be alright. Surely, Seungcheol wasn’t stupid enough to push his limits.

 

Something nagged him in the back of his mind; Mingyu hadn’t had any experience being drunk and he wasn’t completely sure if  _ this  _ was what drunk was, although not being able to stay fully balanced and feeling weightless in the pit of his stomach had to be sure signs. He liked not feeling heavy but at the same time he wanted his control back.

 

Because at some point, he couldn’t stop himself from accepting bottles from random girls who pushed up against him and touched their hands to various places along his arms and sides. It was a foreign feeling; even while intoxicated, Mingyu wasn’t comfortable. There was no allure to having girls push past him, purposefully pressing their chests to his as if there was no room to walk around.

 

Mingyu ended up plopping down dizzily on a sofa in the basement, where the smoke was heavier but the music was muffled from upstairs. Someone had been occupying the same seat, and Mingyu slurred an apology to whoever it was, throwing his arms along the back of the couch. His world was spinning. The smoke wasn’t helping in the slightest.

 

“You look like a funny drunk,” said the person beside him. Mingyu looked at who it was; lines were hard to distinguish but the guy was wearing dark colors, black hair messy, and his fingers tapped along his knees. “I’ll try not to laugh too hard.”

 

Mingyu scowled. “Why...do you say that?”

 

“I just never thought you were the type to get so wasted.” The guy’s voice was bothering Mingyu, although from what he could see, his face was angled and pale and quite attractive, nothing like the humorous condescendence in the way he talked. Maybe it was the alcohol thinking for him.

 

“I’m not—” Mingyu hiccuped, “wasted.”

 

“Kim Mingyu, you are quite a bad liar.”

 

Mingyu blinked, trying as hard as he could to get the bleariness out of his eyes. The stranger looked so familiar behind the haze of being out of his damn mind. “You look like someone I know.” He leaned in closer.

 

The guy put out a hand, gently touching Mingyu’s shoulder, and stopped him from getting any nearer. “Do I?”

 

“Like an angel,” Mingyu hummed, smiling lazily at the boy’s touch. His fingers rested right where his neck met the curve of his collarbone and Mingyu didn’t want him to move away. “You’re...pretty. I think you’re pretty.”

 

“Do you really?” His inflection was so casual and soft and Mingyu had no idea why this guy’s voice was driving him insane. He had  _ no idea  _ what he was doing. If Wonwoo were here, surely he’d knock some sense into him.

 

Suddenly, the thought of him popped into Mingyu’s handicapped mind. “Wonwoo...have you seen him here?” He wondered aloud, letting his thoughts get the better of him. He felt the stranger’s fingers press a tiny bit harder into the fabric of his shirt, right where Mingyu felt tense in his shoulders.

 

“What?”

 

“Jeon Wonwoo. He’s sort of—” Another hiccup. “He’s like, an angel. I told you that you look like an angel, but he _ is  _ an angel. How cool is that?”

 

“Pretty cool, I suppose. But uh, no, I guess I haven’t seen him.” Mingyu suspected a hint of laughter in the other guy’s voice. He blinked a few times in rapid succession, managing to open his eyes wide enough to strain them into some sort of clarity. The stranger had eyes like Wonwoo’s. Slanted, cold-looking, but thoughtful. Mingyu was almost sidetracked.

 

“He kinda looks like you,” Mingyu said, reaching out a hand to touch the guy’s cheek. He felt him smile. “He’s pretty, too.”

 

“I don’t think you’ll remember any of this when you’re sober,” said the stranger, talking mostly to himself. He shifted his body so that he was turned toward Mingyu now, knees knocking together, face leaned in closer. His eyes were definitely like Wonwoo’s. “You think this guy is pretty, do you?”

 

“Yes,” Mingyu managed to gulp out. His inhibitions were out the window. “He’s really nice too. And smart. And he saved my life a billion times. I guess he’s really good at saving lives.”

 

“Is he now?” The stranger was pulling himself closer, hand still gripping Mingyu’s shoulder. Mingyu licked his lips out of habit. “Tell me more.”

 

“Hey,” Mingyu stopped himself from smashing his face up against the other guy’s because he  _ really  _ felt like it was right but, then again, right could also be wrong as far as his drunk mind knew. He shoved himself away, floating into some weird place between sensible and oblivious. The smoke—whatever it was, it was getting to his brain—was not getting any lighter. “Who do you think you are, huh? Seducing me like that?”

 

“ _ Seducing _ you?” said the guy, folding his hands, chuckling as he did so. “Who said I was seducing you? You’re the one who called me pretty.”

 

“I called Wonwoo pretty, too,” Mingyu defended himself. The stranger, now not feeling so strange, laughed again.

 

“Does this Wonwoo guy know you think all these things about him?”

 

Mingyu thought. He tried to make sense of this guy’s words. He’d never really.. _.thanked _ Wonwoo outright for anything. Sure, he’d been there to stop him from killing himself, but Mingyu still had no idea how to feel about that. The memory made him cold inside but the alcohol prevented him from getting worked up about it. Thinking about  _ Wonwoo _ was the thing getting him worked up. He could almost feel the bubbles on his lips again.

 

“I don’t know,” Mingyu admitted finally. He reached over to the table in front of the couch and snatched a random bottle that looked nearly full. Taking a large gulp of the drink, he swallowed loudly and went on. “I...I don’t know how you thank someone who made you want to live again.”

 

The stranger sighed. “You don’t need to thank me.”

 

“I just—” Mingyu interrupted himself when he realized his eyes were tearing up, adding to the lack of clear vision he already possessed. His voice was coming out choked. “I’ve known him for the shortest time and I already know I don’t want him to leave.” Why was he getting all emotional? If Mingyu were in his right mind, he’d feel embarrassed on all levels for spilling all of this to some random guy on a dirty couch.

 

“Yeah,” the other guy agreed. Mingyu realized his voice sounded a lot like the angel in question’s. His inflection hadn’t just been familiar; it was the  _ same.  _ Where did he learn how to talk like that? “I guess you feel like you’ve known me forever.”

 

“Why do you keep saying  _ me?”  _ Mingyu threw his head back, groaning when his stomach flipped. Unsure if it was the alcohol or the words he was hearing, he clutched at his torso regardless.

 

“You’re drunk, Mingyu. You’re drunk and you don’t realize who you’ve been talking to.”

 

Mingyu felt the couch shift and suddenly there was a body right beside him, cupping his face and wiping the sweat and hair from above his eyes. The fingers that rested along his temples were soft and slender and he  _ knew  _ them, he knew that throughout this whole conversation, he had turned himself into a royal dumbass.

 

Drunk Mingyu wanted to keep going. Sober Mingyu, the tiny insignificant voice in his head, let him know that he had been talking to the angel the entire time.

 

“You didn’t stop me,” he mumbled, head falling forward onto Wonwoo’s shoulder. The fabric of his hoodie was soft and Mingyu nearly felt like he could fall asleep sitting up. “You asshole.”

 

“I’m not the idiot that got drunk,” Wonwoo remarked, moving his shoulder so that Mingyu could sit up straight again. He still had his hands cupped around Mingyu’s cheeks, and Mingyu could now see that it was, in fact, an angel. Clear as day. “I was also curious as to what you had to say.”

 

“Shut up. What  _ did _ I say?” Mingyu, quite honestly, had already forgotten.

 

“You told me I was pretty. You said you wanted to thank me and didn’t know where to start. Oh, and you also admitted to being  _ deeply _ in love with me.”

 

“That last thing is not true,” Mingyu gasped. He knew he was stupid, but not  _ that  _ stupid. Besides, it wasn't true in the first place. ‘Deeply’ was not something he attributed to things he felt. He was still in the process of learning how to get rid of the constant numbness he had been used to feeling throughout his entire body. Wonwoo was helping, but loving him? He couldn’t pick apart that feeling from the rest.

 

Wonwoo sighed. “Yeah, okay, you got me. But you did say you felt like...like you’ve known me forever.”

 

“That’s true.”

 

“True for me,” the angel corrected. His thumbs stroked the tops of Mingyu’s cheekbones; at this, Mingyu felt like melting into the side of the couch, feeling touch more intensely than he remembered being able to.

 

“You’re strange,” Mingyu mumbled, closing his eyes, almost hoping he’d have Wonwoo’s mouth on his without having to ask. He still felt extremely out of it. But  _ this, _ this was something he knew he wanted. “So strange.”

 

“And you’re drunk,” Wonwoo’s voice got softer, more tender, as he brought one thumb down to run along Mingyu’s bottom lip. “I don’t know how you feel about this.”

 

“I feel like throwing up,” Mingyu admitted, beside himself. Wonwoo snorted, but Mingyu continued his thought. “But I feel like kissing you. I feel like I  _ really _ wanna kiss you. I’d like to do that, if you don’t mind.”

 

Wonwoo’s breath was warm against Mingyu’s lips as he leaned in closer, drawing his hands away, resting them on his neck instead, stroking gently on the exposed skin. Mingyu felt hotter than the sun, body burning.

 

“I could never mind, Kim Mingyu.”

 

And then, Wonwoo pressed his mouth to Mingyu’s, shifting to get closer. Mingyu focused on the softness of the angel’s lips; he felt like bubbles again and Mingyu couldn’t have been more thankful. He tasted sweet, he tasted of honey and he tasted of springtime even in the depth of winter. Mingyu couldn’t think about everything at once but Wonwoo was pulling away for air and then coming back to him, more forceful and hotter than Mingyu had been feeling moments earlier.

 

Wonwoo was not the sun. He was all of the stars. He was an entire galaxy moaning softly and breathlessly as Mingyu’s mouth moved against his.

 

Music still blared up above; the drunk haze of Mingyu’s mind had subsided substantially and lyrics became clearer but still slightly muffled. Wonwoo had one hand on Mingyu’s neck and the other buried in the hair on his head, tugging so softly but drawing Mingyu in closer as they kissed. It had been a while. Between breaks for air, Mingyu breathed heavily and his lips felt swollen and cared for, and even as he sobered up, he wanted the feeling of the angel to stay there.

 

Wonwoo was kissing back like it was giving him the energy to stay. Mingyu was very aware of every leap and bound in his stomach.

 

So, maybe he liked him. Maybe he liked the notion of him being more than just a protector.

 

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo nearly whined, pulling himself away. Mingyu made some sort of dissatisfied noise, leaning back in to kiss along the angel’s jaw. Eliciting another weak moan from Wonwoo was just what Mingyu wanted. He felt like flying.

 

His lips pressed against the lines of the angel’s neck; he was so warm and Mingyu remembered how often he had noted his inability to feel temperature. Right now, he was burning up under his blush. Mingyu sucked lightly, and Wonwoo’s chest rose and fell even faster. They were making out like all the other couples Mingyu had seen upstairs earlier, but this felt special. Wonwoo was not a random person at a party. Wonwoo was his.

 

And Mingyu was still scared. It occurred to him that Wonwoo was there, he was here and he was kissing him and touching him but he was not really here. He didn’t belong here. Mingyu pulled back almost gasping, and the angel’s eyes fluttered open. The dim lighting of the basement made the whole experience surreal, like the two of them were caught in some half-remembered dream.

 

Mingyu forced himself to think. He was at Jihoon’s party. He had just graduated. He had been kissing a divine being and he had felt full of light, full of what must’ve been happiness.

 

Wonwoo looked starstruck. “Mingyu,” he said. It was a statement with nothing else to it, and the butterflies in Mingyu’s stomach raged but he told them to back off because it was getting to be a little frightening. The feelings he couldn’t help but feel were raging on and on but he was scared. Like everything else in his life, Mingyu was absolutely terrified of this.

 

Ironically enough, he was afraid to fall.

 

He stood from the couch, now far less dizzy and drunk than he had been earlier, and he ran, up the stairs and back into the crowd. Distantly, as if in some nightmare, Wonwoo’s voice called out after him, but Mingyu pushed past people and got outside, the night air stinging his burning skin like being soaked with ice water.

 

It woke him up. He kept running.

 

Wonwoo was following him, Mingyu knew. The reason why he was sprinting down the street was unclear even while he was now sober; all he knew was that the thought of needing someone that badly made Mingyu want to hide. It made no sense to him. He was the most self-sufficient person on Earth and he intended it to stay like that for as long as it could. It was all he _ knew. _ Mingyu did not know how to rely on someone else like that. He couldn’t trouble Wonwoo like that. It would eat him alive. He knew it already was.

 

His feet kept going. Wonwoo still called out behind him, voice getting closer, and Mingyu cursed at himself for thinking he could outrun the angel. Sure, his legs were long, but he was also tired and disoriented and confused to high heaven about everything, about the wars clashing in his mind.

 

Kissing Wonwoo was a mistake. Thinking that he could be something more to him, something to love, it was all a damn mistake.

 

Love was for people who could deserve it. Mingyu could not see himself as deserving.

 

He rounded corner after corner, no caution whatsoever as his feet skidded on the icy roads, and the sound of cars flying by was of no concern to him. Mingyu knew he’d have to stop eventually. He was nearly out of breath.

 

“Mingyu, stop!” Wonwoo was still behind him. His voice was cracking as he yelled, but Mingyu ignored it. He knew how irrational it was but somehow, he could not stop.

 

“Leave me alone!”

 

“Just stop!  _ Please!” _

 

The screech of tires was not close. Surely, it had to be further away. Mingyu knew exactly what was happening before it happened, but the irrationality instilled in his head made it seem like nothing, like he was absolutely fine. Just seconds—no, not even that—before, he had turned his head to see Wonwoo, running after him, right as he crossed into the intersection, and Mingyu felt like an idiot for not looking both ways, for not double-checking, because before he knew it, his eyes faced the night sky and the impact of being hit was all he could feel.

 

But surely, Wonwoo couldn’t save him in time. He had still been so far behind. Mingyu knew he was tall, but his legs were not as long as his own, and his pace had not been quick enough to catch up.

 

And the guilt was far more excruciating than the feeling of lying helpless in the middle of the road, too in pain to take note of the unfamiliar ache in his bones.

 

All of this because Mingyu was afraid to feel again. He was so afraid.

 

Somewhere, someone was saying his name. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the sky and the sound of car doors slamming told him that something was seriously,  _ seriously _ wrong but then out of nowhere, he was being held, there was a face blocking out the view of the stars, and Mingyu could not think straight. Had he really just come from a party? Hadn’t he just kissed those lips? It felt like he was trapped in a movie; everything was taking place so fast and the film reel was spinning and Mingyu's world was spinning and the angel looked like the main character in a tragedy, set face, eyes creased, confusion evident.

 

Wonwoo was frowning. It was a sight that Mingyu had become familiar with. He could not think clearly but he knew what was going to happen and Wonwoo, poor Wonwoo, was holding him as it was happening.

 

Dying, Mingyu thought to himself, was a lot more scary when it came unexpectedly.

 

But he could only blame himself. No words came from Wonwoo’s mouth, but he was crying. He looked beautiful even with tears coming from his eyes and Mingyu wanted to wipe them away but no force in his body could find a way to do it.

 

“Help,” he managed, and Wonwoo choked out something that sounded like a laugh.

 

“Kim Mingyu, what have you  _ done?” _

 

The guilt was too much, so Mingyu let his head rest against Wonwoo, eyes clenching shut, ready to get as far away as possible from where he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is stressful. hopefully the worst is over now!  
> i'm back to writing, sorry for the wait :-)  
> let me know what you think, comments are nice and such  
> till next time lovelies!!
> 
> (remember: nothing is ever as bad as it seems wink wink it ain't over yet)


	8. I’ll call you a memory.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo decided that it was time to break some more rules.

Wonwoo knew how easy breaking rules could be. He had existed through years and years and never had he given much thought to why things were the way they were. Rules, often times, only hurt him more than they helped keep things in order. Order was not always his favorite road to take. He was a bigger fan of the detours.

 

Nonexistence threatened him, but his heart knew that the suffering would be greater if Mingyu were to lay there lifeless in his arms forever. Somehow, he  _ knew. _ Throughout eons of seeing Earth, of seeing people suffer and die without anything but a passing glance, Wonwoo was finally able to feel it.

 

For once, he was  _ glad _ to not be human.

 

Angels are not, under any circumstances, allowed to give life back to things that have lost it. They are not supposed to change the fate of their assignments; Wonwoo has always followed this obligation because he never paid any mind to how high the guilt was stacking up inside of him. Truly, he’d never felt so guilty, never like this, as he sat there in the middle of the street while white noise filled the air around him. The only thing he could force himself to look at was Mingyu.

 

Mingyu had always been his. Now, Wonwoo felt his fragile form, much more delicate and breakable than he’d ever seen it before. Wonwoo knew he wasn’t there. He was somewhere, but not here, and the thought of not doing anything to preserve him, to give him the same second chance that Mingyu had given him, it was sickening. 

 

And so Wonwoo decided, looking down at his assignment, tracing the curves of his lax jaw with strained and tired eyes, touching the now-cold skin of his cheeks, that it was time to break some more rules.

 

The driver of the car that had hit Mingyu was off to the side, frantically talking on the phone to who Wonwoo assumed must be the paramedics; in an instant, Wonwoo popped out of sight, leaving Mingyu laying there on the street, lifeless body like putty he wanted to mold.

 

And then, only a few seconds later, something made Mingyu move. His eyes shot open and he sat up, almost robotic, as if suddenly realizing something no one else could.

  
The poor car driver fainted.

 

* * *

 

 

“Turning yourself in is a very valiant way to hide such cowardly actions.”

Voices dropped like stones. The courtyard was full of Heaven’s inhabitants; angels that Wonwoo had hardly seen in all his life were suddenly in front of him, judgement and disgust apparent on the majority of their faces. The one voice that remained hovering in the stagnant air was of Hansol. Shivers were running laps up and down Wonwoo’s spine. 

Hansol went on, standing motionless only about a yard away, looking like a school teacher reprimanding a student for a bad grade. Wonwoo could not force himself to look elsewhere.

“Jeon Wonwoo, in all my time in this plane of existence, I have never encountered an angel who so desperately sought to make enemies. I have never found one who wished so terribly to be apart from his own kind. Until you,” Hansol said, cocking his head. “Why do you do it? Why do you purposefully break rules and throw our safety around for humans to play with?”

Wonwoo was unable to respond, whether it was out of fear or the force of Hansol’s words stepping on his own vocal cords. 

“Death is not to be reversed,” Hansol said, quieter now. A few gasps were audible from the more oblivious angels; Wonwoo forced himself to look around, apprehension overcrowding his brain, and he was able to spot Soonyoung amongst the crowd, jaw nearly hanging open in disbelief. Disappointment was the only adjective coming to Wonwoo’s mind at the moment.

Hansol was pacing; his feet shuffled back and forth and the way his eyes were glinting made Wonwoo feel unnerved even more than he already had been. The repercussions of his actions were uncharted territory for him. Wonwoo knew one of a few things were possible: one, he was banished from existence. He would go back to being a few grains of stardust. Two, he lost the privilege of being Mingyu’s and he’d have to stay in Heaven until he’d learned some lesson that would probably never sink in. The third option was that he was forgiven with just a slap on the wrist, but Hansol was cold and calculating and all of the qualities that proved _ that  _ option wrong in every dimension. Wonwoo didn’t want to settle for either other outcome, though, so he told himself to stop overthinking. He deserved to be punished. After so long, maybe it would make him feel somewhat whole again.

“I can barely even stand to look at you.” Hansol continued to speak, but by now, Wonwoo had stopped listening to anything other than the incessant ring in his ears. “But I’ve banished too many angels in my time. Somehow, I know you mean well.”

At this, Wonwoo perked up. 

“You want to know love. I get it,” said Hansol, tapping a slim finger on the bottom of his temple, “I think I can understand that. Love is wonderful, it’s all humans have to live for and we can never really experience it the same way. But you must be punished somehow.”

Wonwoo gulped. Here it was, then.

“You’ve been falling in love with this human, Jeon Wonwoo. You  _ are _ no human. It’s better that you learn that now, after so many years of chasing the essence of people you can never have. I’m detaining you here with no assignment until you get that through your head.”

At this, Wonwoo was finally able to get something to come out of his mouth, something not all that unprecedented and compulsive. “But Mingyu—”

Hansol waved him off, starting to walk in the direction away from where Wonwoo stood. “Don’t worry yourself. He’s already taken care of.”

  
And just like that, with such a simple statement, Wonwoo felt himself fall to his knees, unwilling to move or think about why it was him that the universe hated, why it had to be _him_ that lost every single one of the people assigned to him, all because he wanted to feel. Mingyu was not his, he didn’t _own_ him—the perception of it was stupid and childish to believe in in the first place—but Wonwoo felt a hole being carved back into him, just as it had been over and over again, just like all the other times he had let himself fall too fast.

 

* * *

 

 

Mingyu was sitting in the middle of the street. For what reason, he didn’t really know.

He felt as though he had just stepped out of a cold shower and into a sauna; his skin went from feeling cold and void of touch to burning, almost steaming, as he sat staring into space, unfocused on his own body. Mingyu couldn’t recall the events leading up to his position now. He was unsure as to why some random guy was passed out on the sidewalk a little ways away, but that concern felt like a separate matter. So, he got to his feet, a little wobbly at first, and began to walk.

Mingyu felt for his phone in his pocket; upon looking, he had a few missed calls—all from Seokmin—and a plethora of different texts. He started with the texts. Most of them were also from Seokmin, general questions about his whereabouts with the latest one being sent only a few minutes ago. The others were from his parents also asking about where he was, but he found it too bothersome to reply. He genuinely felt carefree, airy, untroubled even. Like floating, his feet carried him down the unfamiliar street until he found his way to his neighborhood.

His house was quiet. Mingyu felt like he had been holding his breath the entire time he’d been walking, so with a sigh of relief, he slipped his shoes off and took comfort in the familiarity of being home. How long had he been out? Questions boggled around in his mind and he was unable to answer all of them.

Where was Wonwoo?

His angel was the only constant. Mingyu went into his room and threw himself onto his bed, spreadeagled and curious as to where he could be. Some part of him remembered his presence, but now, laying there and pondering it, the angel felt detached and quiet, as if the invisible string that connected them was now humming with the static of a forgotten phone line.

Nothing seemed right, Mingyu knew. _ He _ didn’t seem right. He looked at his arms, outstretched above him, and couldn’t recognize his own skin. The breaths he took were shallow and lacked any substance. He felt apart from his own heartbeat; the sound of it was no longer present in his ears even though he knew it was thumping away in his chest.

Suddenly, a mild popping noise got him to sit up, bringing a spark of excitement along with it. He was all too familiar with that signal.

“Wonwoo! I—”

A figure appeared in front of him, but it was not tall and willowy like his angel; the silhouette was much shorter and fuller, nothing like the body Mingyu was used to. Something like disappointment crawled under Mingyu’s skin, and then fear set in, the unfamiliar person who had just popped up in front of him was no one he recognized. It must be an angel though, Mingyu thought, only being able to attribute the random apparition to something of Wonwoo’s kind. He gulped. 

“Phew,  _ boy  _ I have not missed Earth,” the figure said, and Mingyu was finally able to see who it was in full form. “How’s it going?” 

Before him stood an angel, Mingyu knew that, but whoever he was, it was a stark contrast to Wonwoo. The angel had a face touched with tiny moles, large rounded eyes, and his brows furrowed together in what Mingyu could only assume was annoyance. Overall, he was quite short and almost stubby, and the sweater he was wearing was an obnoxious bright pink. Mingyu felt bad for wanting to laugh.

“Who are you, exactly?” Mingyu asked, voice cracking from lack of use. He cleared his throat and cocked his head. “You aren’t Wonwoo.”

The angel looked offended at this. “God, no. That one is one heck of a disaster, isn’t he? I’m Seungkwan, your new and improved guardian angel.” He did an awkward curtsy. Mingyu frowned deeper, confusion setting in. This guy—this  _ angel _ —was giving him a headache already.

“I think there’s something wrong here,” Mingyu gathered, “because Wonwoo is my...my angel, not you. No offense or anything, but this must be a joke. I’m used to...to the tall guy with the narrow eyes and the black hair, not—”

“Not the short one with these golden locks and this ass, yeah I get it,” Seungkwan finished, rolling his eyes, “but this is the truth. I’m all yours now, bud!”

Mingyu was at a loss for words. “I don’t get it.”

At this, Seungkwan let the dramatics dissipate from his features and he sat beside Mingyu on the bed. He rubbed his knees with his hands nervously, wiping their dampness away on the denim of his jeans. Mingyu felt the unease growing in his stomach. Not having Wonwoo here was confusing enough, but not knowing where he was? It was making everything worse. From what Seungkwan was saying, it didn’t exactly sound like he was coming back anytime soon.

“Listen,” Seungkwan started. Mingyu was clenching his fists as a way to cut the tension back. It was hardly working. “Do you remember anything before you got home? Do you remember the reason why you were sitting in the middle of that road?”

Mingyu was taken aback by the question. He thought hard for a moment. All he could recall was feeling like he had walked out of the shower with no towel, skin full of goosebumps, cold to the touch. He had no idea why Seungkwan was curious about why he had been there in the first place and he himself couldn’t come up with a reason. “No,” he answered, shaking his head. “Why?”

Letting out a sigh, Seungkwan eyed him carefully. Mingyu met his glance. The angel’s face was youthful, more like the image of cherubs Mingyu was used to, but within his eyes was something like fire. It churned in Mingyu’s chest, making him feel like he was being scorched in the sun. Seungkwan seemed to look inside him but Mingyu didn’t want him to. He was a stranger. He wasn’t Wonwoo.

“Tell me why you’re here or leave,” Mingyu asserted. “I don’t get why you decide to show up out of nowhere, claiming to be my...my new guardian angel or whatever. That _ can’t _ be how it works. Not unless Wonwoo is...is  _ gone _ or something.” His voice rose continuously in pitch until he stopped himself, choking on his last words, realizing that the look Seungkwan was giving him meant that he had hit the nail on the target.

“No,” he mumbled. “It isn’t true.”

Seungkwan kept rubbing his knees. Mingyu felt the need to reach out and grab his hands to stop himself from being annoyed but he resisted. “He isn’t gone, persay, but he’s been punished. For angels, that means losing the privilege of having an assignment. He messed up, Mingyu. And his whole existence is full of mess-ups. I was sure Hansol would have turned him into dust particles right then and there, but he took pity for some reason…” Seungkwan trailed off, and Mingyu fought back the hopeless feeling arising in his chest.

“Hansol?”

“He’s Wonwoo’s superior. All of our superiors, actually. He calls the shots. Ever since Wonwoo was created, Hansol has been on his ass about acting out...acting  _ human. _ And every time, Wonwoo gets punished.”

Mingyu stared blankly. “So what did he do this time, then? How was he acting human?”

“Love.”

There it was again. Mingyu’s heart ached and he nearly groaned in frustration. Seungkwan didn’t seem to notice the pain on his expression, because he kept talking. “Wonwoo has a history of falling in love. I have no idea what he’s told you or what you know about him, but he’s always been the type to get too attached.”

Mingyu blinked. “And what you’re saying is…”

“He was falling in love. Apparently, people do crazy things when they’re in love, like bringing a damn  _ dead _ person back to life. I still can’t understand.”

“Who did he bring back to life?” As soon as Mingyu uttered the question, stupidly oblivious and lacking to see what Seungkwan was hinting at, he regretted it, because the condescending look on the angel’s face told him all he needed to know.

Seungkwan pressed a hand to his forehead. “Don’t you get it, dude? He was falling in love with  _ you.  _ He saw that you had gotten into an accident he couldn’t prevent in time and he blew it! He did what we learn is against all our rules. He gave you another chance,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger in Mingyu’s face, “and it wasn’t one you should’ve gotten! But I can hardly blame you for it. Wonwoo is the only one at fault here. He’s an idiot of an angel. I can hardly tell if he  _ wants  _ to be one in the first place!”

Profound disbelief dug its way into Mingyu’s skin; he felt numb and engulfed in flames at the same time, unsure of where to turn to. He couldn’t talk to Wonwoo because, well, Wonwoo  _ was _ an idiot. The thought of him bringing him back to life was too strange to understand. The thought of him falling in _ love _ was even weirder. At the same time, he couldn’t feel special, because according to everyone else that knew him, it was a regular thing. Mingyu had just happened to be next in line. It angered him and melted his insides at the same time.

But what could he do now?

“Does this mean I’ll never see him again?”

Seungkwan gave him another look full of pity. Mingyu didn’t want his pity. He didn’t want to know that Wonwoo was never going to pop up randomly in his room again, or help him out of sticky situations, or kiss him in between bookshelves and make him feel  _ alive.  _ Seungkwan couldn’t be aware of this. 

The angel shrugged. “Right now, it looks doubtful.”

It wasn’t so much that Mingyu was sad necessarily. Sadness had never felt this way to him. Then again, nothing had ever felt like this, so mind-blowing and odd. Wonwoo wouldn’t be around anymore. That fact alone was enough to hollow him out and leave the sort of emptiness that comes when you can’t find a solution. Mingyu was aware that he wasn’t saying anything, and Seungkwan nagged him to respond, but his voice was smaller than the whine of a mosquito in his ear. Nothing could matter now and part of him wondered how he had grown so dependent in such a short time. It simply wasn’t like him.

  
He guessed that was a side effect of someone saving your life, over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! hope you enjoy reading :-)  
> seeya next time!!


	9. All those love lines are taking shape.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know much about this Mingyu guy, but it sounds like you really care for him,” Soonyoung said carefully, and Wonwoo felt a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
> 
>  
> 
> Wonwoo scoffed. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

Days passed quicker when Mingyu had no one to focus on but himself.

 

He was encouraged by Seungkwan to get up and do something, but the thought of leaving his bed and heading out into the world and not having an angel his height beside him was disheartening. It was more than that. It wasn’t possible. The height was a minute detail that Mingyu was stuck on. Seungkwan was okay company, but he was not Wonwoo. Wonwoo’s voice was dark and it dug its way into him and painted him the color of indigo, rich and deep, whereas his replacement’s advice echoed around and fell out of sight and therefore out of mind.

 

Seungkwan was...well, he was Seungkwan.

“Mingyu, stop loafing around.”

 

It was at the point in the day where the sun had nearly gone down and Mingyu was sprawled out on the couch, flicking through TV channels without really glancing at what crossed the screen; the angel perched on the loveseat beside him, voice like an alarm going off every few minutes with some useless words of what were intended as encouragement.

 

Mingyu heaved a sigh. “I’m not loafing around.”

 

“You are. To me, you look pathetic.”

 

“Oh yeah? Well to me, you’re annoying. Let me know what else you’d like to know.”

 

“Mingyu,” Seungkwan started, tone of voice now much quieter. “I know you’re hurting. But there’s honestly nothing I can do about it. I’m just here to make sure you’re okay.”

 

Before he knew it, Mingyu was clenching his eyes closed, imagining himself back up on the mountaintop, prepared to step forward and spread his arms wide to hug the ground beneath him. “I’m not. It hurts, and I’m not okay, and I don’t think I’ll be okay for a long time, and I just need to be by myself.”

 

At this, he stood from the couch, brushed past the angel, and headed back into his room, shutting the door before Seungkwan could follow. He needed silence. Mingyu needed himself. He needed clarity. What he didn’t need was Wonwoo’s replacement. That was the last thing he wanted to have.

 

A knock came on the wood of his bedroom door. Mingyu had his eyes trained on the ceiling. He could feel them glassing over and growing unfocused, just the same as how his mind felt, a mixture of there and not there, perhaps somewhere in between.

 

“Mingyu,” Seungkwan called. “Mingyu, you have to let me in.”

 

Letting him in. Mingyu didn’t want to let him in, not through the door and not into his thoughts. He coughed halfheartedly, blinking, unable to get rid of the fogginess. “Tell me where he is,” he answered. “I want to know he’s alright.”

 

Without waiting for permission, the door was pushed open and Seungkwan came to sit on the edge of the bed, frown etched deep into the youth his features held. Mingyu felt so bad for him. He didn’t deserve a fuck-up of an assignment, one who forced difficulty on whoever he was around. He’d done it to Wonwoo and now he’d get to do it again until the day he died with Seungkwan.

 

“He is, Mingyu. You have to believe that he is.”

“I don’t believe in what I can’t see.”

 

The angel sighed. Mingyu hoped he had given up.

 

“Would it help if I showed you?”

 

At this, Mingyu felt his heart tug, a sign that a care for something was still present. He sat up, eyes drifting to Seungkwan, who was rubbing his hands together nervously. He looked apprehensive, as if this wasn’t supposed to be happening, as if the offer he had just posed had started hypothetically but as Mingyu latched on, he’d realized he would have to go through with it.

 

Mingyu gulped, swallowing the nerves growing. “S-show me what?”

 

Seungkwan leaned over, and for a moment Mingyu thought he was about to kiss him on the cheek, but a light ignited in Seungkwan’s eyes and suddenly Mingyu felt like he was floating. He felt like he had the moment Wonwoo had shown him the heavens on the day they had met. “Listen,” Seungkwan whispered, and it sounded like waterfalls rushing in Mingyu’s ears, loud and forceful. “Listen and see.”

 

Mingyu was drawn into Seungkwan’s stare, his eyes pulling him in and sparking visions in Mingyu’s own mind. He focused as hard as he could. The hum of electricity buzzed in his ears and almost instantly, Wonwoo’s face appeared in Mingyu’s mind. He was there, right in front of him, and Mingyu was tempted to reach out and touch him. But he looked empty. The angel he knew was crying, tears streaming silently down his cheeks, lips forming a definite line. 

 

“What can I do to bring you back?” he whispered, unconscious of his own actions. 

 

The vision of Wonwoo shook. Then, Mingyu heard his voice. 

 

“I’m still here. And I’ll find my way back to you.”

 

Just like that, the vision was gone, Seungkwan let out a huff of air and shrugged his shoulders forward, eyes returning to their normal coffee color. Tingles ran up and down Mingyu’s spine. Wonwoo’s voice played over and over again in his ears, fading out and leaving a feeling of longing to grow in Mingyu’s chest.

 

Seungkwan looked at him expectantly.

 

“You love him, don’t you?” His voice was quiet, not prodding, but Mingyu still felt as if he were being impaled.

 

“I don’t know,” he answered, “I...I don’t know if this is what love feels like.”

 

Seungkwan smacked himself lightly on the forehead and Mingyu flinched. “Jesus, Mingyu. You can’t just say you don’t know! Tell me what you saw. He was sad, correct? I can feel his energy all the way down here on Earth.”

 

“He was crying, yes, he was sad. He looked sad. He looked...different.”

 

“Different?” Seungkwan questioned.

 

“Empty. Not like how I know him,” Mingyu asserted. He felt reborn in a way, a newfound determination growing inside him. Wonwoo would find his way back. What that meant, Mingyu had no idea, but Wonwoo was someone who kept his word. Trusting him was all Mingyu had left.

 

The angel thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose that’s what the shell of an angel who lost his assignment looks like. He can’t be with you. He’s broken. No one in Heaven knows what to do with the poor guy. All he does is float around, mumbling to himself, not talking to anyone! He needs you but he isn’t allowed to be here.”

 

The tone of Seungkwan’s voice rose with each sentence. Mingyu felt threatened. The angel fell silent, but Mingyu watched as he searched for words to add.

 

“But...if anyone can find a way to break rules, it’s him. It’s always been him.”

 

That was all Mingyu needed to hear.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.”

 

“You can’t ignore me forever, you know.”

 

Wonwoo stared at the other angel in front of him, looking through him, seeing what he was trying to accomplish by all his nagging. Soonyoung was a good friend but he was also terrible company to have around. Time passed very quickly when Wonwoo was trying to avoid every other being in Heaven. Now, with a voice constantly tugging on his ear, he had no choice but to acknowledge it.

 

“I can,” he answered monotonously, “and I will.”

 

“There’s no way you can possibly be alone like this for the rest of eternity, dumbass,” Soonyoung stated, throwing his arms out in exasperation. Wonwoo raised an eyebrow. “I won’t let you. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself.”

 

“Well, what do you propose I do about it, then? Would you like to go beg Hansol to give me back an assignment? Or, better yet, would you like to make it so that I can go back to Earth and take Seungkwan’s place as Mingyu’s protector? Shoot some ideas out there. I’ve got a whole list you can add to.” The bitterness in his words made Soonyoung look pitiful, as if he were sorry for even suggesting anything in the first place.

 

“Exactly,” Wonwoo muttered. “You can’t. And neither can I. That’s that.”

 

“I don’t know much about this Mingyu guy, but it sounds like you really care for him,” Soonyoung said carefully, and Wonwoo felt a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

 

Wonwoo scoffed. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

 

“You know...I’m not an advocate for self-deprecation, but you could always request to be mortal. I don’t see you doing that, though. Surely you’ve already considered it.”

 

Pondering this, Wonwoo rubbed his chin absentmindedly. Soonyoung was right. He could take that route, but it came at a cost. No memories, no help starting over, nothing. The risk of never finding Mingyu again if he decided to lose his status as an angel was too great to take. Still, he turned it over in his mind.

 

“Oh god,” Soonyoung said, “you’re actually thinking about it. I can’t believe this. You would leave us, you would leave  _ me _ , just for a guy on Earth?”

 

“He isn’t just a guy on Earth. He’s Mingyu.”

 

All of a sudden, becoming mortal seemed more appealing than anything, but it made Wonwoo feel cold. It caused his mind to spin with all the most terrible outcomes, circumstances, and he weighed them mentally against the best-case scenarios. He could get back to Mingyu. He’d be mortal. They could be together without Wonwoo’s baggage as an angel, and for once, maybe he could be happy. They both could be.

 

Soonyoung was still going on and on about betrayal when Wonwoo strayed away from his side, now on a mission to talk to Hansol about what it took to leave Heaven and go back to where he was needed, to where he knew he had to be.

 

“Hey, you punk, I’m still talking!”

 

Wonwoo turned and met Soonyoung’s eyes. A realization passed between them without it having to be spoken, and Soonyoung’s brows creased forlornly. “Wonwoo, you know you don’t have to do this…”

 

“I do,” he said back, no hesitation. “Soonyoung, I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been falling in love for eons. Every single time, it ends badly. I’m going to break that streak and I’m going to do something about it, because taping myself back together is not fun anymore. I’m done.”

Soonyoung’s frown deepened, but he gave in, and Wonwoo saw a wistful smile pass over his face, eyes shining with recognition and understanding. He was a good friend, perhaps the greatest friend Wonwoo would ever have the pleasure of having. Leaving him behind might be the hardest part of all of this.

 

“Well, then I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

 

Wonwoo nodded, pulling him in for a hug, feeling the other angel wrap himself around him in a gesture of complete friendship and love. It was the kind of love Wonwoo knew could never be painful. It was the bond they had shared for all of eternity and it was on account of his own free will that Wonwoo had decided to break it.

 

He was going to get to Earth, and he was going to get to Mingyu.

 

First, he needed to get to Hansol.


	10. Dream maker, life taker.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crying was his only option and to Mingyu, it seemed like an okay choice to be stuck with.

March came to pass and Mingyu was starting to thaw out. What began as the subtle tapping of fingers at the ice around him evolved into nudges and pushes, his efforts to regain something like normalcy chipping away at the feelings he’d harbored since wintertime. 

 

Seokmin became a regular at his house. The two of them would hang out when they weren’t busy, although Mingyu never was, and the Xbox never went unplayed. Mingyu knew that there was something undiscovered about the way Seokmin had felt about him in the past but the thought never seemed to occur to him when they were playing Overwatch or Halo. He was a good friend, excellent company, and he added spice to the life Mingyu had grown wary of. Wonwoo sat in the depths of his mind, but for now, Mingyu could do nothing but push and push him down.

 

“Ugh, you dick!” Seokmin threw his controller gently, just exaggerated enough for Mingyu to recognize his frustration at losing yet another game. “How did you get so good at PvP?”

 

“Practice,” Mingyu shot back, laughing. “What else do you think I do all day?”

 

Seokmin grinned. “A whole lot of nothing that’s for sure. You don’t seem to get out much. All the rest of the guys and I have jobs, whereas  _ you _ stay here twenty-four seven wearing the buttons out on these controllers.”

 

It was true, Mingyu thought. He couldn’t come up with any excuses.

 

“Is it just because school’s out now?” Seokmin pressed. “I got like that at first, not knowing what to do with all my time.”

 

“I suppose that’s one way to put it.” Mingyu sighed, only bothering to feel sorry for himself because Seokmin had brought it up. “I just, I don’t know, I have nowhere to turn.”

 

“Dude,” he replied, sighing and shaking his head. “That’s depressing.”

 

That sentiment came with a trademark Seokmin sympathetic-but-in-a-reassuring-way smile. It was funny, Mingyu noticed, that whenever Seokmin said anything at all, it was usually with that silly grin of his. He could be telling him the saddest news he’d ever heard and yet, Mingyu would still see the flash of teeth. It was just who he was.

 

“Gyu, you’re staring.”

 

Mingyu snapped out of his daze and shut his mouth, refocusing his attention on the television. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. Seokmin just offered up another laugh, bubbly and unaware.

 

“Another round?” Mingyu asked, managing a smile. Seokmin nodded.

 

“Yes. But I swear, if you don’t let me win at least  _ one _ , I’m storming out of here with this damn controller and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

 

“You’ll just have to get good then,” replied Mingyu. Seokmin furrowed his brows and hunched even farther over than he already was. His eyes showed intent to beat Mingyu to a pulp but all Mingyu could do was giggle stupidly.

 

“Oh,  _ shoot _ , am I interrupting something? Oh, god.”

 

Mingyu spared a glance from the TV to look at the form standing in the doorway to his room, barely there but appearing right before his eyes. Of all times for Seungkwan to butt into his day-to-day life, this was probably one of the more inconvenient ones. Mingyu’s fingers felt numb hovering over the buttons on the controller.

 

“Hah!” Seokmin wasn’t paying attention, instead focusing on beating Mingyu while he stared at the angel who had popped up out of nowhere. “I finally won!” He threw his head back with a loud laugh, only just realizing who Mingyu was looking at. “Who’re you?” he asked, head tilting like a dog’s whose owner he had failed to understand the first time. Mingyu set his controller down. “I didn’t know you had friends other than me, Gyu.”

 

“He’s, well, he’s not a friend,” Mingyu said. Seungkwan was looking more awkward by the second, but Seokmin motioned for him to sit beside them, so he did.

 

“Well he is now.” Seokmin took Seungkwan’s hand to shake it. Mingyu wondered if Seokmin shook the hand that strongly of everyone he met. He faintly recalls the strength of said handshake and then pushes the memory aside, not wanting to think of Wonwoo lounging beside him in the school library all that time ago. Now, it seemed like years had passed.

 

“Uh, Mingyu, I should probably get going,” Seungkwan sputtered. He kind of felt bad for him, but Mingyu couldn’t exactly do anything. He was tempted to grill him as to why he had felt the need to show up now of all times but refrained. The look on Seungkwan’s face —his lips were curved downward and his usual upbeat demeanor was absent—told Mingyu that something was up. Seokmin was oblivious.

 

“How do you two know each other?” Seokmin asked. “Lemme guess, he’s another  _ neighbor _ , like that Wonwoo guy. Whatever happened to him? We should invite him over, too!” Mingyu frowned, an ache growing in his chest. He felt like he was about to explode. Deep breaths, he told himself. Seungkwan seemed to notice how uncomfortable he was, because a second later, the angel was on his feet and gesturing with dramatics that had to be fake, distracting Seokmin from whatever he was saying and Mingyu from whatever he was thinking.

 

“I just would really appreciate some privacy with my dear friend Mingyu,” Seungkwan expressed, eyes pleading falsely to Seokmin, whose jaw gaped open in surprised. “Seokmin, if you don’t mind, maybe you could leave for now and come over some other time. It’s  _ really _ important.”

 

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Seokmin stood, already heading for the door to the bedroom. Leave it to him to actually listen to Seungkwan (or, the angel had used some sort of spell or something...Mingyu didn’t know how angels could bend the rules).  “Text me later, Gyu! I’ll see you around, Seungkwan!” He left, shutting the door softly, and Mingyu released the air he’d been holding in his lungs. The angel looked down at him, eyes growing more gentle, nothing short of concern evident in the look he was giving.

 

“Hey,” was all Seungkwan uttered, dropping back down to sit beside Mingyu.

 

“What’s important?” Mingyu asked, cutting right to the point. Seungkwan obviously had a reason for popping up out of nowhere. His mind had immediately gone to Wonwoo, but Mingyu was hoping to God that his intuition was wrong. If something was up with his angel, he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want the negativity or the worry or the weight to be thrust upon him when he was just starting to reach the point of waking up in the mornings without wanting to throw up. 

 

Seungkwan tapped his fingers along his knuckles. His face wasn’t giving much away. “Well, your boyfriend is causing a ruckus up in Heaven,” he said, huffing as the words came out of his mouth. Mingyu’s stomach dropped.

 

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t refer to him as my boyfriend.” Answering weakly, Mingyu swallowed hard and fought back the urge to jump to conclusions. “What do you mean by ruckus? Is he okay?”

 

Seungkwan had a habit of pacing, Mingyu had found out early on in his stay. The angel stood up once again, feet shuffling on the carpet. The noise gave Mingyu something to focus on while his mind was ripping itself to shreds. “Well, I already mentioned he wants to get back to you. From what I’ve heard, he isn’t taking no for an answer. He’s actually going to do it.”

 

“Won’t he get in trouble?”

 

Shaking his head, Seungkwan went on, not looking at Mingyu while he walked back and forth. “No. Not if he leaves voluntarily. See, he wants to come back, but the only way it’s possible is if he gives up who he is. He’s an angel. Wonwoo is acting like he doesn’t  _ want _ to be anymore.”

 

Mingyu almost laughed. Stubborn and with some sort of twisted logic, the description was fitting for Wonwoo. “So, he wants to be like me. Human, I mean.”

 

Seungkwan nodded, but it wasn’t without a frown. “Yes.”

 

“Then what’s the big deal?”

 

The angel just about choked. Mingyu’s question caused his face to be twisted into some sort of condescending and confused look; it wasn’t pretty. Seungkwan brought his hand to his forehead, fingers digging into his temples as if to ward off a headache that Mingyu had caused. He sat back down, shifting his weight away from him, taking in a breath to fuel whatever was about to pour out of his mouth.

 

“The big deal?” The tone of his voice rose ever so slightly. That was never a good way to start. But, Mingyu had asked. Here was his answer. “Wonwoo is going to lose everything. He will lose friends, any divine power he has, immortality, and everything else just for you. For  _ you! _ Does that not freak you out? He’s sacrificing his entire life. You don’t get the big deal about this? Well, I don’t get the big deal about you!”

 

A response didn’t come in the form of words. Mingyu felt chilled to the bone and beside him, Seungkwan tensed up and braced for the backlash that wasn’t hitting him. Wonwoo  _ was _ going to lose everything. Memories flooded Mingyu’s thoughts, strings of conversations they’d had before he had left him, looks he’d been spared, and feelings that had come from nothing were all making a home in his chest. It hurt to think about. Yet, Mingyu was thinking. He had been strong for long enough.

 

“I...I only knew him for a little while,” Mingyu said, voice barely more than a whisper. “That’s nothing but the blink of an eye for you. But he gave me something important. He gave me  _ love _ . He taught me something so unconditional and I believed him. I did. I don’t know if it was foolish, but I did.”

 

Tears are falling down his cheeks now and Mingyu can’t find it in himself to wipe them away. Seungkwan is breathless, motionless, set like stone and finally listening. “I miss him so much,” Mingyu manages to get out of his closing throat. “Ever since he saved my life the first time, I’ve wanted to know everything there is to know. I’d give anything to have one more minute together, one more late night talking about stuff that doesn’t matter. I’d do anything in a heartbeat just to see him appear out of thin air again. It’s stupid and it doesn’t make sense but I’d do it.” Mingyu was rambling. He opted to stop himself before he got too carried away.

 

“Mingyu,” Seungkwan interrupted him as politely as he could, perhaps realizing that it was a mistake to raise his voice in the first place. Seungkwan sounded bashful enough in that respect. Mingyu didn’t know what else he planned on saying, anyway. Admitting he was so desperately in love with someone he couldn’t have was pathetic and it was disgustingly true. The angel beside him could not know that. “He’s going to come back for you. I may not agree with him, but he’ll do it. It’ll take time, but Wonwoo has all the time in the world. That’s how he’s always been.”

 

“He’s the only reason I thought I deserved to live,” whispered Mingyu, and Seungkwan’s hand reached up to rub his shoulder comfortingly. “I was so afraid, and then he came along, and I was still scared but at least he was here. He was  _ here. _ ”

 

“He was here,” Seungkwan repeats. The feeling of his hand on Mingyu’s back makes him want to break down and just let all of what his heart was saying out into the open; Mingyu forced his mouth shut and let himself cry. If Wonwoo was coming back, what would be the first thing he said? Dramatic declarations of love didn’t even seem fitting enough. Crying was his only option and to Mingyu, it seemed like an okay choice to be stuck with.

 

The waiting was killing him. He didn’t even want to know how it was hurting Wonwoo.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You are aware of what it will feel like, correct?”

 

After answering numerous questions, Wonwoo can feel his mind turning to mush. Hansol’s voice has not wavered once even throughout the entire time he’d been grilling him. The two angels stand face to face, Wonwoo’s eyes meeting Hansol’s strongly and unafraid. This question catches him off-guard. He had had no idea it would  _ feel _ like anything.

 

Hansol elaborated, feeding off his confusion. “Like being burned alive. It will be the most painful thing you have ever experienced. Having immortality torn away from you will not feel like a walk through the park.”

 

Wonwoo follows this description with the same sentiment that he’d held on to throughout this whole thought process. “Whatever it takes,” he says, not allowing emotion to seep into the words. With a shrug, his gaze stays put and Wonwoo makes a conscious effort to keep his lips set in a straight line, pursed slightly and not quivering, not daring to show how terrified he was. 

 

The image of Mingyu smiling—that one pesky canine pointing out past the curve of his bottom lip—floated around in his head and calmed him more than his own words of self-encouragement could.

 

“Falling to Earth means a few things. Firstly, you will keep the mortal body you had at the time of your last visit, which means you’ll remain as Jeon Wonwoo upon your return. Second, you won’t have any recollection of this conversation or anything taking place in Heaven, for that matter.” Hansol ponders what he’s about to say next, and Wonwoo follows, letting the explanation soak through into each ear, making sure to know what he’s getting himself into. This is brand new territory. Strangely, Wonwoo figures he’ll enjoy it. Whatever form of sadistic thinking this is, he doesn’t really want to know.

 

“You’re alright with this?” Hansol’s voice pokes into Wonwoo’s thoughts. He finds himself nodding along, agreeing. “Of course,” he says back. Wonwoo has had time to think. He isn’t stupid, like Hansol may suspect, and he’s fully aware of any consequence. The consequence of not being with the person who needed him most wasn’t worth what Heaven had to offer. Years of suffering could not be equal exchange for getting to live forever. Wonwoo would rather die happy than alone.

 

His superior’s eyes close for a moment and then open again slowly, knowingly, pupils searching Wonwoo’s face for any sort of gap in his thinking. Wonwoo won’t let him win. He’s spent lifetimes putting up with being put down just because of how his brain was wired; he had tried and tried and failed many times,  _ every _ time, but this was something he wanted to set right. 

Heaven was not for him. Mingyu was.

 

Hansol sighs. “Okay,” he says, and Wonwoo feels pinpricks in his hands and feet and he wonders if it’d be appropriate to smile. He holds back. “Jeon Wonwoo, I have the divine power to make you fall from Heaven, and if it is what you wish, I’ll do so as soon as you’re prepared.” The words coming from his mouth didn’t seem to be real, but Wonwoo was giddy nonetheless. The fear he had felt before was ebbing away at the prospect of finding Mingyu once again.

 

Of course, he thought. That was the next obstacle he’d have to tackle. “Hansol,” he says, “I won’t have any memory of this, but will I _ — _ and I know this is a long shot _ — _ but will I know about any of the assignments I’ve had?”

 

“I’m not exactly sure. I don’t know if you will or not.”

 

“Okay,” Wonwoo breathes, shoulders heaving forward. The weight of his decision was pressing hard on him. After saying his goodbyes to Soonyoung, he’d doubted himself, if only for a second. Now, Wonwoo knew it was necessary. To live here meant that he’d never see the light of day on Earth again. He’d never get to look after anyone else, never get to experience what it meant to mean something to someone. With Mingyu, he knew it was possible. His time with him had proven that.

 

“I think I’m ready.”

 

Wonwoo could’ve sworn a smile passed over Hansol’s face, but he blinked once and it had gone away. In the back of his mind, Wonwoo felt like Hansol would be over the moon to get rid of him, to never have to discipline him again. However, whenever an angel fell to Earth, it wasn’t the sort of thing to celebrate. Wonwoo knew that. But, he couldn’t care anymore. He had done his waiting.

 

Hansol stuck out a hand. Startled, it took Wonwoo a second to realize he was offering a handshake. He took his superior’s hand in his own, feeling the other angel’s grasp turn into something warmer, like he was holding his hand under the tap of a kitchen sink, water hitting his skin and turning it pink.

 

“Goodbye, Jeon Wonwoo. Take care on Earth for us. You deserve this.”

 

That sentiment was the most emotion Wonwoo had ever heard from Hansol. Just as it was spoken, everything went dark, the heat still persistent and now spreading through his entire body, burying itself in the center of his chest, making him want to cough and heave. All Wonwoo could do was think. This was it. This was what facing mortality felt like.

 

He was ready to face it with Mingyu by his side once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this took a while.  
> i hope you enjoy this chapter. it was hard to gain traction but i like the way it turned out.  
> (while you're here, if you like less serious fics, go check out my chat fic! sorry for the self-promo lol)
> 
> until next time!


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